RSI OF Pag a 


Sole oer 


vue 


OUTLINES OF 


Pe CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS 


OU ELINES OF 


CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS 


LOR OSE INOLECTURES 


BY 


HERMANN SCHULTZ, Pu.D. 


AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION FROM THE SECOND 
ENLARGED EDITION (1902) 


BY 


ALFRED BULL NICHOLS 


PROFESSOR OF GERMAN IN SIMMONS COLLEGE 


New Work 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Lr. 
1905 


All rights reserved 


COPYRIGHT, I9g05, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 


Set up and electrotyped. Published June, 1905. 


Norwood Press 
F. S. Cushing G Co. — Berwick @ Smith Co. 
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 


MmeePACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 


Tue subject-matter of Apologetics makes it still more 
, difficult than in the case of Dogmatics and Ethics to say 
what is necessary clearly and sufficiently within the allotted 
limits. Hence, more than usual of the task of explana- 
tion and of supplement must be left to oral instruction, 
) especially in the philosophy of religion. Especial atten- 
tion is therefore called to the aim of these outlines, in 
order to anticipate unjustifiable expectations. 


H. SCHULTZ. 


GOTTINGEN, 
February, 1894. 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
In 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/outlinesofchristOOschu 


Pieper CO ure SECOND SE DITION 


WirtH the wish to make the reading of this little book 
easier for those who have not heard my lectures, I have 
increased the material and in its presentation abandoned 
somewhat more the character of a “dictation.” But I 
hardly need to say that, even in this form, the work makes 
no other claim than that of a sketch that aims neither 
at giving the material exhaustively and independently nor 
at developing fully the reasons for the conclusions reached. 


H. SCHULTZ. 


GOTTINGEN, 
July, 1902. 


vii 


CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION . ; 3 : : . : r : : I 
1. The Problem . ‘ . : 4 : : "3 : I 
2. History of Apologetics . A : : : : . 5 


BOOK I 
DEFENCE OF THE RELIGIOUS VIEW OF THE WORLD 


PART I: NATURE OF RELIGION : : ‘ : : sors 8: 
3. Historical Survey of Views on the Nature of Religion . 12 


4. True Nature of Religion . . : ; : : sia Ae 


PART II: POSTULATES OF THE RELIGIOUS VIEW OF THE 


WORLD ; ‘ : : 2 é : : AO 
5. The Living Personal God : ; : sr ate ce 
6. Revelation ; : » : : . ‘ ‘ eae 
7. Miracle and Mystery in Revelation . : : : SUM 
8. Inspiration . ; : ‘ : : : : eos 77 


PART III: THE REASONABLENESS OF THE RELIGIOUS VIEW 


OF THE WORLD . : 4 : : : : ve oe 
g. The Necessity of Faith (Duty of Belief ) . : : poe 
Io. Materialism and Pessimism . ‘ : 5 . sats 2 


11. The Proofs for the Existence of God . ‘ s Pai to. 


1X 


Contents 


BOOK II 


PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. RELIGION IN ITS 
HISTORICAL PHENOMENA 


PART I: NATURE RELIGIONS 


I2 


13 


. The Primitive Nature Religions 


. Ancient Semitic Paganism 


14. The Paganism of the Indo-Europeans 


PART II: CULTURE RELIGIONS. 


15 
16 
17 
18 


. The Hamitic Priestly Religions 

. The Philosophical Priestly Religion of the Hindoos 
. The Ethical Poetic Religions . 

. Ethical State Religions . 


PART III: PROPHET RELIGIONS 


+9 
20 


2I 


22 


(a2) On Aryan Soil 
. The Reformation of the Aryan Religion of Light (Dualism) 
. Buddha. The Prophet’s Reformation of the Brahminic 
Priestly Religion (Pessimism) 
(6) Semitic Prophet Religions 
. The Prophet Religion of Israel (Old Testament Theology) 


. Islam. The Reformation of Arabian Paganism under the 
Influence of Biblical Religion 


BOOK IIl 


172 


179 


187 


194 


CHRISTIANITY THE PERFECT EMBODIMENT OF RELIGION: 


DEFENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 


PART I: THE NATURE OF CHRISTIANITY. 


23 


. Jesus in History 


24. Christianity as Faith in Jesus the Christ 


204 
204 


220 


Contents 


PART I]: CHRISTIANITY THE PERFECT RELIGION 


25 


27 
28 


ca 


INDEX 


Section 1. Christianity the Revelation of Perfect Salvation 


. The Kingdom of God 


26. Deductions from the Christian Idea of the Highest Good 254 


Section 2. Christianity the Perfect Revelation 


. Christ 271 

. Deductions from the Fact of Christian Revelation . ZOO 

. Christianity as the Solution of the Religious Problems of 
Civilization 299 


- 9319 [102 
oe as 6 a J 


OUTLINES OF (CHRISTIAN 
APOLOGETICS 


INTRODUCTION 
1. The Problem 


1. APOLOGETICS, as a theological science, aims at the 
scientific comprehension of the nature of Christianity and 
of its place in the spiritual development of man. It seeks 
to maintain the validity of the religious view of the world 
over against the tendencies that would disown religion, and 
to establish Christianity’s claim to be, for our age as for 
others, the perfect embodiment of religion over against those 
who dispute its permanent significance. This task can be 
achieved only within certain carefully drawn limits. Faith 
is a practical personal conviction and establishes its claims 
by the vigor and happiness that spring from it (evidence 
of the Spirit and of power) We can neither know 
God as we know the world, nor can religious truths be 
made evident to every thinking man by the method of 
abstract argument as can logical or mathematical ones 
which are postulated by the mind itself and hence can be 
deduced from it by analysis. Furthermore, every Chris- 
tian will defend Christianity after the fashion of his special 
form of ecclesiastical conviction, and hold the methods 
current in other sects inadequate. But Christianity, as a 
religious fact, stands unmistakably above all differences of 

B I 


2 L[ntroduction 


creed, for whose correctness or incorrectness the compre- 
hension of the real nature of Christianity and of its place 
among religions affords the most valuable criteria. And it 
can certainly be shown (1) that no necessity of surrender- 
ing the religious view of the world can be deduced from 
true science, and (2) that a consistent view of the world 
within which we, as rational and moral beings, find our- 
selves, is impossible apart from this religious point of view, 
while with it it iseasy. But such a view we are compelled 
to seek by an inner necessity, as personalities playing a part 
in the world. Christianity, it is true, disputes the claim 
of reason to set up its theoretic results as standards for 
religious convictions.1_ But it appeals to the verdict of 
conscience and of reason? just as the Old Testament has 
done over against doubters and idolaters.2 God draws us 
to Christ by no magic bond, but by one grounded in the 
life of reason. And the impression which Jesus and his 
work have made ever afresh on men’s souls is by no means 
wrought without presuppositions and convictions of which, 
in case of need, a scientific account can be given. Apolo- 
getics can, by itself, neither convert nor save. God alone 
can arouse within us the faith that makes us righteous and 

11 Cor. 2,14: Wuxixds dé dvOpwros ob Séxerar Ta Tod mvevparos Tov eod * 
bwpla yap air@ éott kal od Sbvarar yrdvar bre TVEVLATIK@S dvaKplyerat. 
Matt. 11, 25: daékxpas radra drd copay kal cuverdv. (Heb, i579) 

7 Matt. 6, 23; 7, 9; 13, 16; 16, 3. John 7,17. (Light in man, signs of 
the time, he who will do his will.) John 1, 5; 5,44. (Fear of the light and 
hypocrisy, longing of the flesh for honor, if one does not “Dbelieve.”) Rom. 
I, 19-21: yvdvres Tov Bed, H aldios adrod Svvams Kal Oedrns; 2, 14: é€avrots 
clot vouos. Acts 17, 27: ob waxpay dard évds éxdorov Nua brapyav. 

8 Against the “fools” who say “there is no God,” the mockers: Ps. 1; ta 
49, 53, 73. Prov. 14, 63; 21, 24. Against pagan idolatry: Is. 40, 19 ff.; 41, 
21 ff.; 44, 9 ff.; etc. Against pessimism and weak faith: Job 36 ff. 

John 6, 44: oddels S¥varas éNOety wpds ue, day ph 6 mwaTnp 6 wéupas pe 
ehxdoy adréyv, 1 Cor, 2, 11: Td rad Geod oddels older, ef un Td wredua Tod Geod, 


The Problem 3 


alive. And it is not only since the invention of the micro- 
scope and telescope that we know that neither the soul 
hor its aim are accessible to scientific experiment, and 
that God and his heaven cannot be found beyond the 
clouds. He who refuses to go beyond the boundaries of 
sense experience and of logic can gain no assurance of 
religious truths. Nor is this assurance a self-evident com- 
mon property of all beings capable of reason, though it 
can be shown that whoever rejects the religious view of 
the world must also deny the qualitative difference between 
the life of the individual spirit and the processes of nature, 
and must look with scepticism on the world as an insoluble 
riddle. 

2. Apologetics, although older in the church than dog- 
matics, has not yet taken its assured place in the system 
of theology. After the overthrow of paganism in western 
Europe, Christianity passed for centuries as the self-evi- 
dent presupposition of European culture. Judaism was 
looked on as an obstinate denial of one’s own better con- 
science, Islam as an enemy to be fought with the sword. 
Amid all the conflicts of creeds and parties the universal, 
undisputed thesis was maintained that the Christian religion 
was a revelation and demanded recognition by divine right. 
Even the struggle against Rationalism in the eighteenth 
century limited itself at bottom to the question how Chris- 
tianity had arisen. Moreover, all adequate knowledge of 
the real historical development of religion, which is essen- 
tial to a true appreciation of Christianity, was lacking. 
A scientific apologetic, alongside of polemics, ethics, 
and dogmatics, was not felt in the evangelical church 
to be an indispensable part of systematic theology. Its 
material was for the most part interwoven incidentally 


4 Introduction 


with the prolegomena of dogmatics or with dogmatics 
itself. 

3. The evangelical church of to-day, if it is to continue 
to exist as a power among educated men, needs apolo- 
getics. And the theologian, as an expert in matters of 
religion, cannot take his place among the promoters of 
knowledge with a good scientific conscience without it. 
We have become like the church before Augustine, and 
passed from the dogmatic to an apologetic stage of the- 
ology. The better comprehension of the nature of reli- 
gion, for which Kant and Schleiermacher prepared the way, 
no longer permits us to gauge the truth of Christianity by 
the correctness of individual dogmas of the church or of 
reason, or by the miraculously approved character of its 
origin, nor to be content with a fides historica. Since the 
discoveries of the last century the history of religion lies 
before us in an entirely different shape than before. 
(Hieroglyphics, clay cylinders of Mesopotamia, the civili- 
zation of western Asia, Vedas, Avesta, Tripitaka.) It 
puts the conditions under which the religion of Israel and 
the oldest Christianity arose in a new light in many ways. 
Christian Europe has come into contact with the lands in 
eastern Asia, where an ancient religious culture reached 
a high stage of development. Christian missions can no 
longer dispense with the deeper appreciation of Brahmin- 
ism and Buddhism. Islam and Buddhism in turn have 
made their appearance in Europe in apologetic and po- 
lemic. (Syed Emir Ali and Achmed Chan Bahadur; 
Buddhist catechisms by Henry S. Olcott, 1887, and 
Subhadra Bikshu, 1888; the person of Jesus interwoven 
in Buddhist legend.) In Christian Europe itself the open 
denial of the foundations of Christianity has taken a more 


Lfistory of Apologetics 5 


and more undisguised and successful form in David 
Strauss, Feuerbach, Comte, Friedrich Nietzsche. Science, 
intoxicated with its successes, is groping for a new meta- 
physic and religion, while the hostile passions of the mis- 
guided masses reject all religious life. And in men like 
De Lagarde and Eduard von Hartmann we meet with the 
claim to be the prophets and forerunners of a new and 
loftier faith, which has nothing in common with Christian- 
ity except admiration for the piety of its founder. We 
live in an age of contrasts and of attempts at reconcilia- 
tion, of efforts to revivify dead forms of religious cults 
(Edda, Greece, Buddhism), of eclectic philosophies, of a 
lofty morality “ without religion,” of the closest association 
of the believer with the opponents of religion. Hence 
theology must submit to a scientific test those foundations 
of faith which the simple Christian holds as an immediate 
- religious certainty. 

In apologetics, in distinction from dogmatics and ethics, 
only those facts and statements can pass for proof which 
are susceptible of scientific demonstration to any one. 
Hence it is unscientific to include apologetics in dogmatics, 
and must, if done, blunt the sense of real certainty. 
Apologetics, as a body of principles, is the foundation of 
systematic theology. Its task is (1) to understand the 
nature and claims of religion, (2) to comprehend the his- 
torical phenomena of religion, (3) to exhibit the nature 
and perfection of Christianity. 


2. Listory of Apologetics 


I. The defence of Christianity has not followed the 
demands of system and addressed itself first to unbelievers 
and sceptics, then to pagans, and lastly to Jews, but has, 


6 Introduction 


as need and opportunity offered, defended first the right 
of belief in Jesus on the common ground of the Old Testa- 
ment;! has then addressed itself to the slanders spread 
among the people by the Jews, who reproached the Chris- 
fians with practising an immoral and criminal secret cult ; 
and finally has met the attacks of Greek mockery, which 
partly jeered at religion itself, partly antagonized Chris- 
tianity as a superstitious innovation, hostile alike to culture 
and to reverence for the past.2. In the age of the Anto- 
nines the intellectual superiority is plainly on the side of 
Christianity,? and in the attacks on it a certain respect for 
it is unmistakable (Celsus).* 


1 Paul; Epistle to the Hebrews; Epistle of Barnabas; Altercatio Jasonts 
et Papisci; Justin, Dial. c. Tryphone ; Tertullian, Adv. Judeos ; Cyprian (?); 
Origen, c. Celsum, 1, Il. (Eusebius of Emesa; Chrysostom, six Homilies in 
Antioch; Agobard of Lyons; Isidor of Seville.) 

2 Tacitus, Fronto, Crescens. (Pliny.) 

8 Quadratus, Aristides, Melito, Claudius Apollinaris, Miltiades, Justin 
Martyr, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Tatian, Bardesanes, Clement of Alexandria, 
Irenzeus, Melciades. Latins: Minutius Felix, Tertullian (Cyprian?). Cf. 
Clement, Homilies, and the Epistle to Diognetus. 

4 Chief points of apologetics according to Tertullian: (1) The persecution 
of the Christians is illegal. Accusations of flagitia cannot be disproved by 
mere denial of a name. All religions must be voluntary. Human edicts are 
changeable. Religious absurdities and denial of the gods are not punished in 
pagans and philosophers. (2) The lives of Christians show nothing worthy of 
punishment. The /lagitia are slanders. The Christians look on the Roman 
Empire as the last bulwark against evil. They are good citizens and hold 
aloof from vice and luxury, but not from social and civil life. They honor the 
emperor and refuse only to pay him religious homage, which they refuse in 
general. (3) Their secession from the religion of the state is not criminal. 
They pray for the aversion of God’s wrath and so protect the realm. Heathen 
sacrifices dedicated to deified wretches, at whom the pagans themselves mock, 
are devoured by demons. These flee before the exorcisms of Christians. 
(4) The Christian religion is thoroughly reasonable. Pagans turn Christian, 
but never Christians pagan. Reason can argue from the world to the one 
Creator to whom the vox populi, the anima naturaliter christiana, also invol- 
untarily bear witness. Philosophy, too, teaches the Logos. The incarnation 


ffistory of Apologetics 7 


2. With the renaissance of paganism and its philoso- 
phy in the age of the Severi, a harder struggle begins 
against a view of the world that owed much to Christian 
elements, —a view which saw in mythology the shell of 
esoteric wisdom, in the gods of polytheism servants of the 
great God, and in Christianity a barbaric misinterpretation 
of philosophical thought; a view which put Orpheus, 
Apollonius of Tyana, Pythagoras, and Plato alongside of 
Jesus, and which tried to defend both the religion of the 
fathers and the civilization of the old world against the 
new religion of the uneducated, which was hostile to cul- 
ture and drew down on the land the anger of the gods.} 
This tendency, which had its roots in later Stoicism, finds 
its best expression in Neoplatonism, whose origins often 
lie close to the Christian movement. It aimed to escape 
from evil realities by asceticism and ecstasy, and conjured 
up, as a link between the hidden godhead and the empiri- 
cal world, to reconcile their contrasts, a series of more or 
in which it saw the divinities of 


) 


less divine “ potencies,’ 
classic paganism by means of allegorical interpretation. 
Thus it aimed to take the place of Christianity as a reli- 
gion of redemption, — even to surpass it,—and at the 
same time to rescue the treasures of ancient culture from 
barbarism and “monkish” contempt. Over against it 
apologetics points to Christianity as the salvation of a 


is not more incomprehensible than heroic legend. The statements of Pilate 
bear witness to Christ’s resurrection and ascension, The sacred writings of 
the Jews, which point to Christianity, are older than the wisdom of the Greeks. 
Hence, the Christians, whose exemplary care of the poor, charity, harmony, 
fraternal love, and edifying ritual no one can deny, deserve, at least, tolerance 
from the authorities. And that the persecutions make Christianity stronger 
instead of weakening it, that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the 
church, gives the state, as a legal body, no right to proceed arbitrarily, 
1 Porphyrius, Hierocles, Philostratus (Julian), cf. Lucian. 


8 I[utroduction 


world perishing in vice, and rejects the new wisdom as an 
artificial and untrustworthy invention.! Christian mockery 
here fights with the weapons forged by pagan rationalism. 
The holding up to ridicule of the “mob of gods” had 
become, since Panzetius, Mucius Sceevola, Cicero, and 
Seneca, as little novel in Rome as in the Athens of Aris- 
tophanes. Lucian furnishes the scoffers with inimitable 
caricatures of the world of the gods. Hence it was not 
difficult to confute the artificial attempts to exhibit in 
these phantasms philosophical profundity and religious 
warmth. Conjuring and artificial mystical excitement 
cannot hold their ground against historical forces and 
personal faith; and what gives satisfaction only to the 
sntellectual aristocrat is helpless against that which makes 
the “poor in spirit” happy. With Constantine apologetics 
becomes a cry of triumph over a conquered enemy,” a 
fashion of the schools, or a philosophy of history.* 

3. The apologetics of the Middle Ages, directed against 
pagans,® Jews,° and Moslems,’ serves practical purposes 
less than the reénforcement of the Christian conscious- 
ness. On the other hand, with the rise of the Renais- 
sance begins a defence of Christianity,’ which, if pretty 

1 Methodius, Apollinaris, Origen. (Gregory of Nazianzes, Philip of Sida, 
Photius.) 

2 Eusebius of Caesarea, Arnobius. 

8 Lactantius. (Maternus, Commodian, Athanasius, Cyril of Alexandria, 
Orosius. ) 

4 Augustine, De Civ. Det. 5 Thomas Aquinas, Contra gentiles. 

6 Rabanus Maurus, Gilbert of Westminster, Ruprecht v. Deutz, Peter de 
Blois, Walter of Chatillon, Nicolaus of Lyra, Andronikos Comnenos (d:dac- 
carta laxbBov veoBarrlorov, 640, ed. Bonwetsch. Thaddeus Pelusiota, 1265). 

7 Raimundus Martini, Petrus Venerabilis, Nicolaus of Cusa, Torquemada, 
Saumonas of Gaza. (Joh. Kautakuzenos.) 


8 Marsilius Ficinus, Picus of Mirandola. (Savonarola.) Revival of Neo- 
platonism, but in learned and artificial form. 


f[iistory of Apologetics 9 


artificial and lifeless, was continued in both churches 
through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and has 
never ceased since! The most important work of apolo- 
getics of these older times is the fragmentary Pensées 
sur la religion by Blaise Pascal (0d. 1670) (ed. Prospére 
Faugére, 1844). Pascal, in his youth a sceptical man of 
the world, always remained a sceptic in the sphere of 
philosophy. Converted under the influence of miracles 
and ecstasies which he experienced (November 23, 1654), 
and living in closest contact with the world of miracle at 
Port Royal, he passed his life in heroic renunciation of the 
“natural” and “comprehensible,” and of the world. His 
last years were une thébaide et un calvaire (Victor Cousin), 
He tried to picture “the misery of man apart from God” 
and “the bliss of man with God” in two books, and so 
make men disposed to believe “until God gave belief.” 
Leibnitz, in his 7héodicée and his Pensées sur la religion et 
la morale, is far inferior to Pascal as a religious genius. 

4. The church saw itself driven to a really serious de- 
fence of its interests by the denial of supernatural revelation 
and of the historical uniqueaess of Christianity by Deism? 


1 Catholic, in the sixteenth century, Ludwig Vives; in the seventeeth, Cam- 
panella and Huet. Protestant, in the sixteenth century, Duplessis Mornay; in 
the seventeenth, Hugo Grotius, G, Calixt, Limborch, Jaquelot, Pictet, Le Clerc, 
Hale, Allix, Cudworth, Grey. (J. Abbadie: Sur la vérité de la religion 
chrétienne, 1684, contains the literature. ) 

2 In the seventeenth century: Thomas Hobbes (religion of the state), 
Charles Blount (reason and morals), Edward Herbert, Baron Cherbury 
(natural religion). In the eighteenth century: Toland, Tindal, Chubb, 
(against mysteries, Christianity as old as the creation), Thomas Morgan 
(against the Old Testament), Collins (against the prophecies), Wools- 
ton (against miracles). So Connor, Craig, etc. Hume’s scepticism opposes 
also “natural religion.” (Lechler, Gesch. des engl. Deismus.) In France Vol- 
taire (Zvangile du jour), Rousseau (Confession de foi dun vicaire savoyard 
in Emile, Bk. 4). 


10 Introduction 


and Rationalism,! with which a tendency essentially 
hostile to Christianity and all religion had early be- 
come associated2 The struggle was carried on, on 
practically the same lines, into the nineteenth century in 
English,? French, and German.? But as it was limited at 
bottom to the effort to beget a fides humana toward Chris- 
tian revelation by pointing to miracles, prophecy, and 
inspiration, and to find universally valid proofs for the 
existence of God in the world, the possibility of a real 
success was excluded from the start (Lessing, Schleier- 
macher). 

s. In the presence of the various forms of a mood 
hostile either to Christianity or to religion in general in 
the present, numerous speakers and writers have tried to 
address apologetics to the mass of educated men, for the 
most part in the interest of the conservative school of 
theology over against freer tendencies. It is enough to 


1 Z.g. H. Samuel Reimarus. 

2 E.g. Maudeville, Chubb, Bolingbroke, Shaftesbury, Holbach, D’Alembert. 

8 Apologists in the grand style are Bentley, Jerkin, Leland, Beveridge, 
Paley, Chalmers, Thomas Erskine. Against natural religion, Waterland, 
John Conneybeare, Jackson, Law, Stelling, Horler. The Old Testament is 
defended by Chapman, Leland, Burnet, S. Chandler, W. Warburton; proph- 
ecy by Clarke, Sykes, Sherlock, S, and E. Chandler, Jeffery, Bullock, Stack- 
house (thirty-five pamphlets against Collins in three years); miracles, by 
Gibson, Pierce, Lardner, Smalbrooke (sixty pamphlets against Woolston), etc. 
Against J. J. Rousseau, the editors of the Christan Magazine, 1765. On 
the resurrection of Jesus stood West, Ditton, Sherlock; on the conversion 
of Paul, Littleton. More modern English apologetes, John Barclay, 1836; 
Charles Hardwick, 1863. Important and with better method, Arthur Bal- 
four, Zhe Foundations of Beltef; and Seeley, Ecce Homo. 

4 Bernard, Bitaubé, Houtteville, Alfonse Turretin, Bonnet, Bergier, Cha- 
teaubriand, Bullet, Guénée, Clemence. 

5 Buddeus, Lilienthal, Ndsselt, Less, A. F. W. Sack, Kleuker, Spalding, 
Pfaff, Mosheim, A. v. Haller, Jerusalem, Reinhard, Seiler, Képpen, Tollner, 
Tittmann, 


fitstory of Apologetics II 


refer to collections like the Bridgewater Treatises, the Hul- 
sean Lectures, and the books of the Hague Genootschap 
tot vertidiging van den christlyken Goddienst in their 
original aim, and to the Bewezs des Glaubens; or to 
names like Luthardt, Christlieb, Stutz, Riggenbach, Au- 
berlen, v. Zezschwitz, W. Bauer, Diisterdieck, Uhlhorn. 
Alongside of these has arisen, from the feeble beginnings 
of Erasmus, Miiller, Franke, Stein, H. Sack, Steudel, and 
Stirm, among both Catholics! and Protestants,” a scientific 
treatment of apologetics, which has accomplished much. 


1 Perrone, pt. 1, Frayssinous, Drey, Dieringer, Staudenmeyer, Hettinger, 
Alb. Maria Weiss, Paul Schanz. 

2 Franz Delitzsch, Ebrard, Eduard Baumstark, Tolle, Kratz, E. G. Steude, 
Kaftan, Nagel (Pfleiderer, Rauwenhoff), Ihmels, Tréltsch (Siebeck, Eucken). 


BOOK I 


DEFENCE OF THE RELIGIOUS VIEW OF 
THE .WORLD 


PART I: NATURE OF RELIGION 


3. Historical Survey of Views on the Nature of Religion 


I. VULGAR opinion, where it does not see in religion an 
invention of ambitious priests and statesmen? or an 
illusion of the fancy begotten by egoistic desires,? or a 
deceptive precipitate of the process of civilization and 
its ideals,? is wont to seek the essence of religion in ritual 
and in its doctrine concerning divine things, that is, in 
those external phenomena that are accessible to sense 
experience. And this view underlies in various forms 
that distaste of scholars for religion which Schleiermacher 
tried to meet in his Reden iiber die Religion. Over 
against this superficially empirical view, Kant was the 
first to conceive of religion as a practical certitude of 
the spirit, springing from the moral law, and to dis- 
tinguish it fundamentally from the effort of thought 
which aims at metaphysical knowledge. It is true that 
theoretic reason has also a necessary impulse toward 


1 Sophists. 2 Hume, Feuerbach, Comte. 

8 Bender’s view can be misinterpreted in this direction. 

4 Deum cognoscere et colere (“Religion in the narrower sense is the spe- 
cial virtue of reverence of God; in the wider, it embraces, along with reli- 
gious exercises, religious doctrine ” concerning God and his relation to man. — 
Schwane, Catholic). 


12 


ffistorical Survey of Views 3 


the infinite; but it can arrive by the speculative path 
only at an endless vista, not at that final nature of things 
which it seeks. It is limited to the phenomenal world. 
Only by practical paths does reason really reach the 
supersensual. It is also true that the moral law, as a 
categorical demand of practical reason, must be con- 
ceived of as absolutely independent of religion. But by 
imposing itself imperiously on man and making him 
feel that his own will—in so far as he is himself 
empirical (phenomenon)—is not coextensive with the 
content of the law (radical evil), it compels him to 
believe in the invisible (transcendental) world of free- 
dom and in the omnipotent power of good. Religious 
faith is therefore the duty of man as a moral being 
(postulates). And hence we can see how the moral law 
itself could not come to the clear consciousness of 
empirical man in history except through a divine revela- 
tion, that is, by the path of religious history. The reason- 
ableness whose expression is the moral law, is just as little 
the actual reason of mankind as it is that of the indi- 
vidual. Religion is therefore, for Kant, the understanding 
of moral duties as divine commands. So religion becomes 
for him an auxiliary concept of ethics, made necessary 
by the sensual nature of man. Any real and living 
relation to God, however, seems to him unjustified and 
an illusion. Entirely right though he is in protesting 
against the confounding of religion and metaphysics and 
in emphasizing the inner connection between true morality 
and religion, Kant is nevertheless able to offer no 
explanation of a number of the experiences of Christian 
piety. Ritual must be to him incomprehensible; prayer, 
penance, childlike joy, the consciousness of reconciliation, 


14 Nature of Religion 


are at bottom illusions. And the highest phenomenon 
of morality must be, for Kant, not the ‘son of God” 
who lives in his Father, but the autonomous virtuous 
hero who stands by himself outside of religion. 

2. J. G. Fichte introduces with prophetic power into the 
view of Kant the elements, first of his subjective atheistic 
idealism, and then of his objective acosmic mysticism. 
Religion is for him life, experience, practical knowledge, 
immediate consciousness of the true world which reveals 
itself to us in our freedom. In the first stage of his 
philosophy he sees in the religious process man’s liberat- 
ing consciousness of the living pure ego concealed in him; 
in the second, the surrender of finite being with its ego- 
istic illusions to the one true being (German mysticism). 
Above that lowest view of the world which takes the 
phenomenal for the real, above the loftier conception 
of the world as a realm of moral law, and above the still 
more sublime conception of the world as a realm of moral 
freedom, stands the religious conception, which sees in 
the morally good the revelation of the inmost being of 
God (judgments of worth). Its creed is the joyful doing 
of God’s will. Its interpretation constitutes the philo- 
sophic view of the world, which, as “science,” recognizes 
the How of that which religion experiences. Religion 
is a view of the world (yiveoxew) which is born of moral 
freedom and of the love of the Good, One, and True, 
which carries with it bliss (Johannine). For the com- 
prehension of religious history and ritual and for the 
independence of religion over against morality, Fichte, 
too, has no feeling. And decisively though he himself 
bases religion on the practical life of the spirit (‘it 
depends on what one loves”), nevertheless his system 


Pe ee eS Oe) eee ee 


ffistorical Survey of Views 15 


leads to misunderstanding, as if religion were a popular 
form of metaphysics. 

3. Hegel really arrives at the same result. For him 
the essence of absolute spirit is thought. God comes to 
a consciousness of himself in the finite spirit, first in 
vague feelings, then in representation, where thought 
is still bound to the image, finally in the act of thinking. 
Hence religion is an act of God within the spirit of man. 
Beginning on the level of feeling, it rises to the level of 
representative knowledge, and so to a popular and pre- 
liminary stage of philosophic thought. The content is 
the same in philosophy and in religion, viz. the unity 
of the absolute and the finite spirit. But religion has 
this content still in an imperfect form, which the reflecting 
intellect, by separating image and thought, completes. 
Thus not only theology, but religion itself, becomes merely 
a preliminary stage of philosophic thought. What ritual 
seeks in vain, viz. to abolish the separation of God and 
man, philosophy achieves. On the pure ethereal heights 
of thought the sage dwells, above the religious life. Life 
here is transformed into an idea, and feeling into a stage 
in the evolution of abstract knowledge. Blessed are the 
rich who do not need the kingdom of heaven. Hegel © 
fails to see that the essence of spirit is not merely 
“thought,” and that feeling is not a lower form of knowl- 
edge. Knowledge has always been only a subordinate 
factor in religion. Were religion at bottom ‘‘a stage of 
knowledge for those incompetent of thought,” the goal 
of human civilization would have to be the transformation 
of religion into knowledge (J. S. Mill, Schopenhauer). 
Hence Hegel has not promoted the comprehension of 
religion, although he is right in conceiving it as at bottom 


16 Nature of Religion 


an act of God in man (Hemann, Gloatz, A. Dorner). ) 
With his intellectualized conception he really falls back 
on the verdict of Rationalism on religion (Krause). 

4. We meet the mystical side of Fichte's definition of 
religion (but without its ethical roots) in the esthetic con- 
ception of Schleiermacher, which is allied to romanticism, 
(Jacobi)! For him religion is neither action nor knowl- 
edge, nor a union of the two, but feeling, a feeling of ) 
absolute dependence. Feeling, as the unity of being amid 
the alternation of knowing and willing and as having 
reference to the subject only as determined by impres- 
sions, constitutes the underlying presupposition of the acts 
with which ethics and metaphysics have to do. Only in 
feeling can God really be in us.” Feeling, when it has 
outgrown the dreamy confusion of its beginnings, feels 
itself at once determined by the world, and that in a con- 
tinually alternating relationship of freedom and depend- ! 


ence. But on the basis of the impressions of the world® 
man feels himself determined, together with the whole 
world, by a power over against which there is no play of 
freedom. He feels himself and the whole world to be 
absolutely dependent. In this feeling he has religion and 
possesses God. And in the soul of every man lies the 
absolute necessity of experiencing this feeling. Hence 
religion can be aroused in the soul of the individual only 
by the revelation of God. Religious feeling is, in itself, 
simple unity, and gets its variety only from the impres- 

1“ With the whole intellect a pagan, with the whole heart a Christian.” 
View of the world from the point of view of the reason of the heart. 

2 God is the annulling of the contradictions of the world. In thought he 
is idea; in will, conscience. 


8 The impression of law in the world and of the unity of reason gives the 
transition. 


Fiistorical Survey of Views 17 


sions of the world, without which it cannot by itself fill a 
moment, and its phases only by the capacity or incapacity 
of the soul to let it be begotten in it with ease and purity. 
With knowledge and will it is of course empirically always 
united, but it is itself wholly independent of them. And 
the true nature of religion is disguised by the fact that it 
actually appears always in the form of ritual and doctrine. 
Even Schleiermacher’s view,! though in its fundamental 
thought and its denials essentially correct, is nevertheless 
one-sided. It overlooks the fact that religion always car- 
ries with it, as one of its elements, the practical personal 
attitude of the individual in the world. It fails to see the 
element of will, without which religion cannot arise. It 
undervalues the significance of religious knowledge, be- 
cause it lays too little emphasis on the unity of the life 
of the soul. It does not explain the history of the lower 
religions. And because it views only the psychological 
process of religion, without conscious reference to that 
which produces it, it offers no adequate security against a 
corruption of religion by zsthetic substitutes (art, enjoy- 
ment of nature),? or against the danger of mistaking religion 
for a mere subjective mood which might be mere illusion. 

5. The great majority of modern Christian theologians 
and philosophers recognize with Schleiermacher that the 
essence of religion cannot be sought in ritual and knowl- 
edge. But almost all emphasize the significance of the 
practical need of human personality * and its moral aptitude 

1 Novalis (cf. Fries, De Wette): “The sphere of religion is presentiment, 
necessary conviction from pure feeling.” Recently Duhm: “ The true religious 
process is achieved as a mystery, in ecstasy.” 2 David Strauss, 

8 In a hostile sense Hume and Feuerbach emphasize the “ egoistic”’ desires 


that find expression in religion by identifying the essence of religion with its 
imperfect and childish historical beginnings. 


Cc 


18 Nature of Religion 


for religion in another way than Schleiermacher. Man’s 
natural and moral need of help (Herbart), the striving after 
real goods (Zeller, Kaftan), the ethical impulse of self- 
assertion (Vinet, Schenkel), the need of the maintenance 
of moral personality within the world of natural phenomena 
(Ritschl, Hermann, Reischle), are emphasized to explain 
the origin of religion. Lipsius and Pfleiderer hold free- 
dom in God, I. H. Fichte and Hase restoration of harmony 
in man by love, to be the true essence of religion ; while 
Kahler and Holsten lay only a general emphasis on the 
relation of man to a revealed God (Beck, “ divine inner wit- 
ness”). All recognize that religion includes a relationship 
to the world as well as a relationship to God, and that it 
must be at once an act of God and an act of freedom. The 
factor of knowledge in religion has been most strongly 
emphasized by Rauwenhoff, according to whom religion 
arises from the conjunction of the feeling of reverence with 
the activity of the imagination endowing nature with life 
(animism); and by Julian Kostlin, who describes it as 
practical conduct determined by the kindling of feeling 
and imagination (Peschel, Tiele, Dorner, Jr.). Troltsch,\ 
too, sees in religion, as in all the experiences of conscious- | 
ness, a union of ideas and accompanying feelings, out of | 
which various motions of the will arise, and thinks that the 
starting-point is always an idea, however simple, because 
the intellect always holds the primacy over against the 
will. According to him it is a question of an ideal percep- 
tion. But it can be no illusion and must be looked on as 
a necessary demand of human life, as something given in 
consciousness; for the religious feeling of need cannot 
arise until one experiences what one needs. What assumes 
the morally best as self-evident cannot be self-deception. 


Lvue Nature of Religion 19 


The dispute turns at bottom on whether the need of 
happiness or the consciousness of the moral task plays the 
chief réle in evoking religion. The answer will be differ- 
ent according as we seek the essence of a phenomenon in 
its history or in the ideal (norm) that comes to expression 
in it. The question, too, has been asked, whether religion 
has its roots in the nature of the creature as such, or only 
in the imperfection of the conditions of earthly life. 


4. True Nature of Religion 


1. Neither by the method of psychology, nor of archz- 
ology,’ nor of etymology,? is it possible to extract the 
essence of religion from its varied, contradictory phenom- 
ena, now alluring, now repellent. The beginnings of reli- 
gious history are a dark realm of mystery, in which not 
| even the progress from primitive to higher forms can be 
| scientifically established. The psychological process in 
religion is one so involved and so debated that it cannot be 
taken as the starting-point. And the etymological results 
could be decisive only for the religious peculiarities of 
definite peoples. All the other higher phenomena of 
humanity appear at the start intermingled with foreign 
elements, like children of need and desire. And what 
finally turns out to be the thing of most value may at 
__ first seem very feeble and incidental. And on the other 
hand, it would not be justifiable to construct the idea of 
religion from the nature of Christian piety as it lies com- 


1 Statius, Thedais, 3, 661, timor fecit Deos. (Lucretius.) Hume, Strauss, 
Feuerbach. 

* Religio, according to Cicero (De Nat. D. 2, 27) from relegere (Terence, 
Andria, 941 (scrupulosity), Gellius, Voctes attice, 4, 9); according to Lactan- 
tius (Just. div. 4, 28) from religare , better from ig (San, 164, Nevoow, to 
look). (everentia, legality, civic virtue, is the Roman idea of religion. ) 


20 Nature of Religion 


plete before us. On the contrary, it is a question of ascer- 
taining what is common to the historical religions and 
essential to them all (Kaftan), and thence to frame a 
normal conception. Only then can we have success in 
analyzing the psychological process in religion (subjec- 
tive). 

2. Unquestionably religion always implies the relation 
of man to a (divine) power distinct from the things of 
objective experience,’ by which he conceives his life in 
the world to be influenced. The gods of Epicureanism, 
who do not trouble themselves about men, are as little 
objects of religion as the God of Deism. The ‘divinity ” 
is always presupposed in religion as really existing ; not 
on the ground of logical thought (e.g. according to the laws 
of causality), but involuntarily and necessarily by the 
imagination, which conjectures, behind the effects and 
phenomena of the world, acting powers, or feels in the 
mysterious life of the human soul something permanent 
and invisible (animism, worship of souls). The existence 
of these powers is made self-evident and certain to man 
through his experience of the influence on the liesor 
nature on his fortunes. Their personification springs 
from the involuntary action of the imagination of the liv- 
ing personality. But this “childish metaphysic” does 
not become religion until man, urged by his desires and 
needs, puts himself in a practical personal relation to this 
“divinity.” Religion and metaphysics touch, — but “ back 
to back” (Siebeck). 

And religion always begets a cycle of ideas (faith) and 
induces a special method of action (ritual). But it is not 
born of the theoretic interest in comprehending the world 


1 Even the fetich worshipper appeals to the “ spirit ” in his natural objects. 


Lrue Nature of Religion a 


(metaphysics, mythology). And it by no means coincides 
with moral effort, although when perfect it is closely 
bound up with it. Its convictions are of a practical sort 
(judgments of worth), and the goal which it seeks is not 
properly the morally good, but the maintenance of one’s 
own interests amid the uncertainties of temporal life 
(possessions, happiness). The effort after the mainte- 
nance of the common interests of the clan has worked 
here earlier and more powerfully than that for the attain- 
ment of the private interests of the individual; and in this 
the ethical impulse and the impulse to form a community 
have, in all religions, their roots. Man believes in a 
power which is able to influence worldly affairs, and tries 
by communion with it (ze. by worshipping it) to become 
master of the world, as a whole or in part, as he cannot 
through his own relations to the world. That is the 
inalienable content of the lowest, as of the highest, reli- 
gions. The highest goal of religion is therefore the win- 
ning of a supernatural good that is common to all (2.2. 
moral) by a blessed communion with a deity conceived of 
as absolutely supernatural, one who is no longer a naive 
assumption based on uncomprehended processes of nature, 
but a God historically revealed as love. The community 
of the clan becomes a human community, happiness 
becomes eternal life, influence on the world the moral 
control of the world. Hence it is certainly correct to say, 
that for man on the summit of religious development, 
religion is inseparably connected with morality and has 
its soundest roots in the moral demands. But he who 
does not limit religion to its loftiest manifestations will 


1 The interests of private life belonged, in the classic religions, in the realm 
of “superstition,” not of “public religion.” 


22 ! Nature of Religion 


look for its universal foundation, not in the moral impulse, 
but in longings for benefits. The lower religions seek 
simply worldly advantage for the individual by magical 
methods. And even Christianity claims to bring, not 
morality, but bliss (Ze7 ai@v_0s ). | 

3. Only in the life of the human soul can the process 
of religion really be understood. Its external phenomena 
are only the reflex of its essence, often only a deceptive 
appearance. Apologetics, in investigating this psycho- 
logical process, is far from taking sides in questions of 
scientific psychology or claiming a scientific knowledge 
of the soul as such. Only the activities of the soul which 
offer themselves to unquestioned observation can come in 
question. The mental life of the higher animals divides 
itself on observation into two great groups of phenomena. 
First, the living being becomes immediately conscious 
of itself (feeling) as something influenced pleasurably or 
painfully by external things, and necessarily under the 
influence of this feeling frames judgments of worth and 
experiences impulses of the will which spring immediately 
from it. Secondly, there is born in it an idea of the 
nature of that which influences it and the desire to know 
it better. This objective consciousness, developing from 
vague images into definite concepts, gives rise of itself to 
no impulse of the will, but can merely guide the blind will, 
while finding its own goal in itself. Even the impulse 
toward knowledge, up to its highest forms, is doubtless 
originally roused by practical incentives and accompanied ~ 
by them, and even in knowing the soul has a feeling of 
satisfaction. But in itself this impulse is satisfied when . 
we understand its objects, and has to do, not with the 
interests of our personal life, but with the things them- 


True Nature of Religion 23 


selves. It passes no independent judgments of worth and 
seeks to free itself more and more, as it rises in the scale 
of development, from the influence of the interests of the 
will. This two-sidedness of the activity of the soul is 
necessarily involved in the attitude of the living, knowing 
subject toward the external world. In the same way feel- 
ing is the fundamental phenomenon, because the subject 
is always first conscious of itself as something influenced. 

In this whole region the mental life of man is distin- 
guished from that of the higher animals, so far as we can 
draw inferences concerning the latter, only in degree. 
Feelings may be very vague and intermittent, just as the 
transitions from plant to animal life are imperceptible and 
obscure in their gradations. Even in the mental lite of 
animals, feelings are often very complicated, delicate, and 
strong. And it is not otherwise with ideas and acts of the 
will. Even the combination of feelings prolonged by 
memory, the control of momentary movements of the 
will by these (training), and the uniting of various trains 
of ideas in order to arrive at a decision, occur unquestion- 
ably among the higher animals. The word “instinct” 
(inherited feeling for the purposeful) by no means explains 
such facts. The deliberate exaggeration of the kinship of 
the mental life of animals with that of man in which the 
modern naturalistic school delights, as did that of an- 
tiquity (Celsus), should not prevent us from recognizing the 
element of truth in the observations on which it is based, 
— truth which a one-sided idealistic study of nature has 
often overlooked or despised.1 There are no gaps in 
nature. 

But certain though it is, that shadowy hints of a higher 


1 Cartesius held animals to be automata, 


24 Nature of Religion 


mental life are found among animals in their fidelity, in 
their feeling for their families, and in their delight in 
sound and colors, it is just as certain that the capacity for 
religion, morality, and knowledge in the true sense of these 
words is found only in the human soul! It is true that 
apologetics has no scientific right to claim a new substance 
in the human body, or even a new grouping of substances 
already existing in it;2 nor, in the fashion of the older 
idealism, to assume a “spirit” which has been added 
to the animal mentality. But beyond all doubt, and to be 
proved at any moment by experiment, is the fact that man 
alone of all creatures is able, starting from phenomenal 
impressions, to feel himself above phenomena, to act freely 
(z.e. morally), and to think in ideas, — although he brings 
with him at birth no innate ideas or moral principles or 
fixed zesthetic laws. Amid the whirl of the impressions of 
the phenomenal world that throng upon him through the 
senses, he is able to feel the permanent impression of 
something supersensual, which reveals itself in their rela- 
tions to one another. The feeling for the beautiful, the 
sublime, the good and true, the necessary and purposeful, 
can be roused, in one way or another, in every man. And 


1 The pious elephants and wise ants of classic naturalism prove as little as 
the apes, ravens, and dogs of modern materialistic collections of anecdotes. 

2 What is the significance of the relative mass of the gray matter of the 
brain, the great extent of the surface of the brain, the finer convolutions in 
the brain and its furrows and folds, the relative shortness of the spinal cord 
and of the cerebellum, the peculiarly human relations between the skull and 
the facial angle, the human hand, the upright posture, etc., in relation to the 
mental life, and whether they have not come about through evolution and 
inheritance, can be established only by reasoning in acircle. In this sphere 
probability is certainly not on the side of naturalism. But it does not beseem 
apologetics to base itself on what is merely probable. The idealism of the 
eighteenth century has been here too little cautious. 


True Nature of Religion 25 


hence he is able to frame judgments of worth which are 
independent of the judgments based on sense impressions, 
and are even able to contradict them (the pleasant v. the 
good). And the action of the will of the good man is 
determined by such fixed judgments of worth, not by the 
impulses of sense experiences or their combination (wisdom 
of the world). He is able to act according to principles 
(freely). He who denies this must also deny the facts of 
art, of law, and of morality. 

And man is able to base his judgments not merely on 
sense impressions which he is able to frame and combine 
into conceptions. He can understand the unity and 
necessity in the phenomena, that is, their laws, and 
can frame conceptions. And being a thinker, he can 
speak. For the mere production of significant sounds is 
not speech (Adyos). He who denies this must deny, not 
merely philosophy, but all knowledge. The soul of man 
is spiritual. And this fact, however it may have arisen, is 
more certain than all our knowledge of the phenomenal 
world, and can be established for all normally developed 
men of every race. Looked at in detail, the mental life of 
man can be compared to that of the animal; as a whole, it 
is absolutely unique. Therewith man enters an order of 
life for which phenomenal standards no longer suffice. 
He is competent of social, intellectual, and civil intercourse. 
He is freed from spacial isolation and temporal change in 
the centre of his life, though always on the condition of 
the maturity of the animal life in him, and with the pre- 
supposition of his physical relationship to the world. 

The consciousness of this spirituality gives at once the 
assurance that the spiritual impressions and the spiritual 
functions have the absolute right to rule the soul in feel- 


26 Nature of Religion 


ing, willing, and thinking (reason), and in case of dispute 
to disown the lower mental processes as immoral and illu- 
sive.t To the totality of these higher phenomena of self- 
consciousness we give the name of “personality” as 
distinguished from mere individuality (a whole over 
against a whole, a supersensual centre). And while man 
as part of nature, like all creatures, is for others as much 
means as end, he knows himself, as personality (reasoning 
being), absolutely the end for nature, even for his own. 
That false theology which looked on man as part of 
nature, existing for the purposes of the world, has long 
ago been given up to well-deserved contempt. Every 
part of nature is under the laws of causality and is unfree. 
Nature knows no ends. Man is a means from the point 
of view of the animal world, as it is from his. But by 
thought he lifts what is separated in time and space to the 
unity of idea, and by the moral effort of the will frees him- 
self from the alternation of changing motives, and places 
himself under the unchangeableness of principle. And so 
he becomes, as a Spiritual and reasoning being, an end for 
the nature in him and outside of him. In this sphere 
alone can religion be looked for. 

4. Religion certainly does not belong among the phe- 
nomena of objective consciousness. Although it is cer- 
tain that it is never without a set of ideas which are 
in various ways related to metaphysical thought on 
the divine, and that it always presupposes some idea, 
however primitive, it is just as certain that the measure 
of the achievements of thought in relation to such ideas 


1 Rom. I, 32: 76 dcxalwua Tod Geod érvyvdvres bre of TA ToLadTa mpdocorTes 
G10. Oavdrov eiciy. Even if man sinks himself to the standpoint of animal 
wisdom, he abandons it in his judgment on others, 


True Nature of Religion a7 


is never the measure of religion (clearness and complete- 
ness). Not the best theologian or philosopher, but the 
childlike souls most deeply sunk in God (pexpot, “\3Y) are 
the really typical phenomena of piety. Hence its essence 
cannot lie in the sphere of knowledge; and where we find 
only a thought about God, without regard to our own practi- 
cal relation to him, where, that is, the impulse toward knowl- 
edge is the decisive motive, we do not speak of religion at 
all. Religion belongs to the practical side of the life of 
the human spirit. Hence it must begin in feeling and have 
its inalienable foundation in feeling. The degree of reli- 
gion must be gauged by the strength, purity, and uniform- 
ity of religious feeling; not by physiologically conditioned 
excitability and the striking unusualness of the expression 
of feeling, for these depend on temperament and sex, on 
climate and race, but by the vigor and persistence with 
which this feeling asserts itself amid all sense impressions 
and their change, and determines personality. 

Religious feeling is conditioned by personal self-con- 
sciousness, and it must be evoked by influences which, 
though produced by the world, do not belong to the 
world, but are akin to the inner nature of the life of 
reason. Man becomes religious by becoming conscious of 
himself as determined by “God.” Hence religion has its 
place within the great cycle of feelings for the beautiful, 
good, just, sublime, necessary. It does not beget neces- 
sarily a theoretic knowledge of the divine (philosophy), 
but invariably judgments of worth on the divine, 
i.e. on its significance for our own personality. These 
judgments can and must be objects of knowledge, that is, 
beget a practical view of the world (an assurance of sal- 
vation) which, when elevated into a science, becomes 


28 Nature of Religion 


theology. And it begets, not simply a moral act of the 
will, but an act of the will under the impression of the sig- 
nificance of the divine for our own personality, which can 
and must in turn be classified under ethics and lends it its 
religious character. It appears first as the will to act with 
reference to the divine (ritual), and only with the higher 
development of religion does it become the will to act 
under the impression of the self-revealed divine (Aoyuxy 
Aatpeia). In the immediate certainty of these judgments 
of worth (religious conviction), and in the power of this will 
as lord of life (joy in sacrifice), religion finds the test of its 
health over against the illusion of impressions of God 
begotten by the imagination. “By their fruits ye shall 
know them” (Matt. 7, 16). The heroes of religion are 
the men. who put the visible alongside of the invisible 
(Heb. 11). 

The spiritual life never works by natural processes, but 
always by setting the consciousness of personality in mo- 
tion. And the influence of the supersensual cannot make 
itself felt unless entrance is opened to it. Hence religion 
cannot arise unconsciously and without participation 
of the will. There is no belief without the “will to 
believe.” Thus religion is distinguished from all the 
eesthetic feelings which arise from the impressions of the 
world and of the harmony revealed in it, without partici- 
pation of the will. The higher zsthetic feelings are, to be 
sure, related to the religious ones in their phenomena, but 
they are always only substitutes for it, and therefore, if 
fostered in a one-sided manner, very dangerous to the 
health of religion. 

5. Religion is consciousness of God roused by impres- 
sions of God on the reasoning personality. Hence it is 


True Nature of Religion 29 


either an illusion, or God himself must evoke it in man 
(revelation). And he can do this only because something 
akin to him dwells in man; only because personality is 
other than nature and has the immediate certainty of 
standing above the world. “We are his offspring.” But 
he who feels this certainty knows also that it holds of 
everyman. Therefore where religion is present, it is some- 
thing that binds men together, a universal human interest, 
although, on the other hand, it is something most unique 
and special for each human soul. 

God can evoke religion, like every other spiritual 
experience, only by letting the world work upon us in a 
definite fashion. For our spiritual life receives its impres- 
sions only through the physical one. It is evoked neither 
by the beauty of the world nor by its obedience to law. 
In the awful secrets of nature faith finds its nourishment 
as well as in its fair and delightful phenomena. And 
“wonder is religion’s dearest child.” Nor is it evoked 
through admiration of the sublimity of nature nor through 
human morality as developed in history. In religion man 
demands to be free from nature. And for him who does 
not yet believe, history is anything but a revelation of 
moral law. Just as little is the consciousness of the moral 
task, over against nature’s absolute indifference to moral- 
ity, the primary determinant. Else the history of religion 
would begin with Jewish prophecy. All primitive piety 
among men aims not at the good, but at good things. But 
the world evokes religion by its incongruence with the 
personal spiritual life of man and his needs, z.c. by show- 
ing itself incapable of satisfying claims which spiritual 
personality cannot and dare not renounce. And this by 
no means merely because of the obstacles and the physical 


30 Nature of Religion 


ills which it brings us, nor even because of our sins; even 
if conceived as sinless (s¢ integer stetisset Adam, Calvin) 
we could find no peace in the world as world, and all the 
pleasure of the world cannot satisfy the soul; but be- 
cause a self-determining personality feels itself unhappy, 
z.e. in contradiction with its deepest consciousness of self, 
if it be a mere temporary link in the causal chain. Person- 
ality, which feels itself free, which makes nature its means, 
and conquers space and time in the realm of thought and 
morality, feels itself at the same time under the compulsion 
of the causal law, inextricably entangled in the change and 
isolation of time and space. The true nature of this con- 
tradiction dawns on us first, it is true, with the perception 
of the absolute nature of moral duty. But it is astir even 
in the lowest religions when men turn in physical fear and 
longing to their god. And it must exist in glorified spirits, 
as well as in struggling sons of earth. Not, it is true, in 
the form of longing for deliverance from the world, but as 
the blissful consciousness of not belonging to the world. 
Because we are more than the world, the world bears 
witness to us of a power above the world, which rules it. 
Tu fecisti nos ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec 
_ requiescat in te (Augustine). We feel the compulsion to. 
experience this world-controlling power in a life akin to. 
our life of reason, and to be freed from the world by being 
determined by that power. Thus God uses the world to 
rouse the religious impulse. And he creates religion by 
revealing himself and exhibiting in impressions of his might — 
a power which can satisfy the demands of personality. 
That the impulse toward religion is more than sub- 
jective longing and illusion can, of course, not be proved 
to one who denies it, by formal proof, But for the devout 


True Nature of Religion 31 


this doubt can arise as little as can doubt of the reality of 
his mental life in general. Man can assert the dignity 
of his reasoning personality in the mechanism of the 
world only by taking himself for God, or by being devout. 
In religion man possesses the power to “overcome the 
world.”” At first he thinks to accomplish it by religious 
magic, then by faith in the miraculous, at last by con- 
sciousness of his sonship of God. And this gives him a 
comprehension of the world as one in which there is place 
for his own self-consciousness. The world becomes the 
material of a divine purpose which is recognized and 
appropriated by the spiritual personality. Hence the 
devout man feels it to be a human duty to have religion. 
Not because he needs a religious conception where logi- 
cal knowledge stops (Herbert Spencer), but because a 
reasoning personal being dare not place itself absolutely 
in the sequence of causal law (regard itself as like the 
world). Religious faith is a postulate of practical reason. 
This whole process would, of course, be impossible if a 
conviction (even though an unconscious one) of something 
“divine” in the world were not involved in the condi- 
tions of our personal reason. But for real religion it 
comes, nevertheless, only in the shape of longing for free- 
dom from the world (blessedness). This longing would, 
to be sure, be unable by itself to prove that religion is not 
self-deception; but the devout man feels that a spiritual 
personality in the natural world would be an absurdity 
if this world were not God’s world. Faith becomes real 
certainty only when the religious demand is met by a 
revelation of God.! 


1 Hence religion rests upon the conviction of reason of something above 
the world as self-evident for personality. But it itself arises by God awaking 


32 Nature of Religion 


6. Where there is religion the wish must also arise 
to let our own life be determined by our relation to God. 
This finds expression first in ritual worship, from its rudest 
to its most spiritual forms. Its essence is always (1) devo- 
tion to the god (sacrifice, adoration, renunciation); (2) the 
effort to become a partaker of the divine (sacrament, de- 
vout practices). This is always the same, in spite of the 
immeasurable distance between profit-seeking sacrifice and 
magic rites on the one hand, and the worship of God in 
spirit and truth and sacrament on the other. Worship 
is always a proof that religion is present or has been pres- 
ent. A superficial view gauges religion in general by it, 
whereas only the feeling from which it sprang or springs, 
not the act of worship itself (which may be a mere survival 
of a dead feeling, body without soul), belongs to religion 
(danger of ‘“ecclesiasticism”). Without the impulse to 
worship there can be metaphysics, but no real religion.) -_ 
As long as the divinity is felt only as above the world, as 
a power determining the world, a tendency toward moral- 
ity need not be involved in the impulse of the will that 
proceeds from religion.2 But the more the divinity be- 
comes one with the idea of the good, the more are moral 
elements included in worship, and the more is it felt that 


the longing for communion with him by the impression of the insufficiency 
of the world, and by satisfying it by revelation of his supernatural power, 
directed to the personal aims of man. It is completed when God, revealing 
himself as man, becomes known to man as the power of love which overcomes 
the world. . 

1 Incapacity of Rationalism for worship. Artificial ritual of Comte and 
St. Simon. Dreariness of esthetics trying to veil the want of religion. 

2 E.g. sacrifices to a capricious despot (sacrifice of children, ritual immo- 
rality). In the lower forms of Christianity energetic practice of ritual exists 
along with great moral indifference. Where religion is of this sort, a distaste 
for it can arise on moral grounds. 


True Nature of Religion 33 


the really impelling motive of religion is the consciousness 
of the moral task and of the moral rights of personality 
(personal dignity). The goal is the complete absorption 
of worship in the moral tasks of life as the will of God 
(kingdom of God, Aoyx NaTpefa). Morality becomes one 
with holiness, immorality becomes sin against God, moral 
freedom becomes obedience to God (service of God). 

7. To the capacity of the reason for morality, espe- 
cially for that determined by religion, modern races 
give names which correspond to the Greek ovveidnors, 
the Latin consczentia, the English ‘conscience.’ These 
names have all had originally a wider significance (self- 
consciousness) and have gained their special meaning 
only as the frank naive participation of the individual 
in the customs and religion of the community began to 
give way to personal reflection and judgment! The older 
races, in the period of their uninterrupted development, 
_ judged themselves simply by the objective standard which 
the popular life (that included religion) presented to the 
individual, and hence did not need a special court of 
appeal sitting in judgment in the individual soul. Con- 
science has primarily nothing to do with religion. Least 
of all is it a “central organ of religion.” It is only the 
necessity, involved immediately in the practical constitu- 
tion of reason, of letting one’s own moral quality be 
judged, favorably or unfavorably, by inwardly acknowl- 
edged ideals. The verdict of conscience, like esthetic 
judgments, becomes effective without intention or reflec- 
tion, and even against our own wishes, although it is 
variously conditioned and anticipated. Conscience is 


1 Chrysippus, Epictetus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, — Philo, — Paul, Peter, 
Epistle to the Hebrews, — TIN® a5, Ps. Ki E2. 


D 


34 Nature of Religion 


therefore primarily not a teacher or a norm for moral 
action, as if it were a code of duties imposed on man by 
God, but a judge that presupposes a definite ideal. And 
since this ideal may be changed or be astray, the verdicts of 
conscience differ in content, and there can be such a thing 
as a weak or erring conscience. Conscience may con- 
demn one man for an act, for whose omission it blames 
another (vengeance for blood, war, revering of relics). 
Hence no one can rely absolutely on and appeal to the 
verdict of the consciences of others (natural capacity). 
But in the form of its verdict conscience is unerring, and 
for the individual it is the final court from which there 
is no appeal; so that whoever acts contrary to his con- 
science, though objectively rightly, feels himself justly 
condemned (Rom. 14, 23). For him who loses his self- 
respect there is no compensation in the approval of others, 
even when they can judge more justly than he. Con- 
science becomes a guide only on deliberate reflection, by 
giving a verdict on actions merely thought of as if they 
were already accomplished. It becomes a champion 
against unjust human judgments, while at other times 
the “ good” conscience is as little felt as is health. Con- 
cerning the fundamental conditions of social life, the con- 
science of every educated man passes, of course, the 
same verdict. For the foundation of reason is for all the 
same. And there are demands without which a moral 
social life is not possible at all (trust, justice). Hence 
there is a conscience that is in agreement through wide 
circles, a social conscience, and each individual owes it 
reverence. But this conscience, too, has come about under 
many special conditions. And every civilized man has 
the right and duty, if supported by his own conscience, 


True Nature of Religion 35 


to reject the verdict of the social conscience in cases of 
contradiction, and to become a “ martyr to his convictions.” 

In itself conscience has no religious character. And 
a man can be conscientious without religion. But where 
religion is present at all, the conscience, along with the 
ideal of life, must be determined by religion. The con- 
science that judges by religious ideals can, it is true, be 
other than the conscience that judges by moral standards; 
it can even contradict it, and as a higher divine court vote 
it down. For “religious duty” is felt at first as a ritual 
and ceremonial one, and so is indifferent to moral duty. 
But with normal development the will of God becomes more 
and more the “willing of the good” (Col. 2, 16; Gal. 4, 9) 
and all good becomes the “will of the divinity.” The 
only goal can be, that the voice of conscience in its unity 
be felt to be God’s voice (cuvetSnois Oeov), and that at 
the same time its verdict become simply that of the pure 
moral ideal. Thus the devout Greek felt in a disapprov- 
ing conscience the accusing voice of the Erinyes. And 
the penitent in the Old Testament says, ‘“ Against thee 
only have I sinned” (Ps. 51, 4). 

8. From religion springs of itself neither a science of 
the world (nature, history) nor of God as such (metaphysics), 
but a conviction of the significance of God for our own 
personal position in the world. Hence the relation of 
religion and science seems in theory very simple. But in 
fact the case is other. For (1) religion in any individual 
is always evoked by instruction or by historical tradition. 
It is true that man does not become really religious until he 
is personally touched by the self-revealing God. But he 
comes in contact with the revelation of God in already 
developed religions, only in so far as it has already become 


36 Nature of Religion 


crystallized in the community in the shape of tradition 
and religious doctrine. And the more spiritual, grand, 
and historically significant a religion is, the more powerful 
will this factor show itself, and with it will come the dan- 
ger of being satisfied, under the influence of rational or 
creedal intellectualism, with a fides humana. (2) The 
highest, absolutely incognizable reality and power, postu- 
lated by science and revealing itself in every phenomenon, 
is, in fact, in itself nothing else than what religion postu- 
lates. Hence arises a relation between metaphysics and 
religion that can easily lead to a counterfeit of religion 
intended to serve as a stop-gap in our knowledge of the 
world. (3) Man as a reasoning being must make his 
religious convictions, too, objects of intellectual investiga- 
tion and find a place for them in the circle of the sciences. 
Here the representative power of the imagination, 
influenced by the view of nature and history which it 
finds all about it, even though only a poetically scientific 
one, will mould religious feeling into pictures and ideas 
(myth). The science of nature and history, however, must 
also make that natural and historical region out of which 
impressions of revelation proceed, an object of its investi- 
gation. And it must subject the views of the life of na- 
ture which underlie religious ideas to criticism. Hence 
with the changes of scientific opinions religious conceptions 
themselves must change or else lose their convincing 
force. Hence it is obvious from the start that only that 
form of religion can be permanent in which religious faith 
has made itself independent of such changes by distinguish- 
ing its own sphere clearly from the ideas associated with 
it. Where that is not possible a conflict between religion 
and knowledge must be inevitable at a definite stage of 


Lrue Nature of Religion a7 


culture. To avoid it, (1) the science of religion (theology) 
must be clearly conscious of its dependence on the devel- 
opment of all knowledge. It is impossible to investigate 
historically one division of history by methods and laws 
different from those used in the other divisions, or to try 
to interpret the laws of nature in certain cases differently 
than in all others. It must (2) hold clearly and definitely 
to the uniqueness of its own object. It has to investigate 
from the scientific point of view the impressions of the 
divine which touch man in nature and history, which free 
him from the world, and guarantee to him the true worth 
of his personality (blessedness). In the great difficulty of 
doing both consistently lies the crux of present theology. 
Revelation seems to many inseparably bound up with the 
scientific view of the history in which it appeared, and 
religious conviction with the opinions held, at the time of 
the revelation, concerning the processes and the structure 
of nature. But this does not seem the case to any one 
who rightly understands the nature of faith and of knowl- 
edge. 

Faith is religious conviction, ze. the conviction, based on 
religious experience, of the divine significance of things 
for us. Knowledge is the conviction, based on the expe- 
rience of the senses and the laws of thought, of the reality 
and the unity of things.! Faith is true only for him who 
is impressed by the divine meaning of things and will let 
himself be impressed by it (velle credere); knowledge is 
true for every normal man. Nature and history are never 


1 From separate acts of knowledge up to science. All the more perfect, 
the more that will and feeling are excluded in passing judgment. Both kinds 
of conviction are subjective, but both include the certainty that there is a 
reality corresponding to them. 


38 Nature of Religion 


objects of faith in their worldly nature and actuality, but as 
bearers of a divine revelation. Even the highest mediators 
of revelation can never, as individual phenomena of history 
and in regard to the external course of their fortunes, be 
objects of faith, but only in so far as God reveals himself by 
working upon us through them (divinity of Christ). And 
the views of nature and history which were held to be self- 
evident in the age of revelation (and hence also by the 
human agents of it) have no more significance for faith 
than have learned views of antiquity in general. Hence, 
too, faith can never, merely because it is convinced of the 
content of divine revelation in a narrative, make, of its 
own motion, the demand that it must be held to be un- 
erringly transmitted from the point of view of history, if 
the science of history should raise objections to it. A 
religion whose theology should actually contradict the 
position’ taken by science would condemn itself (pagan- 
ism). The inmost essence of faith is trust in the voice 
of God, which comes to us in the impressions of the phe- 
nomenal world. What can be known does not need to be 
believed. What needs to be believed cannot be known. 
So long as we think ourselves able to apprehend objects 
of knowledge by faith, or to search the realm of faith by 
knowledge, a consistent culture is impossible. The nec- 
essary result is either the disbelief which, even for the 
personal, practical judging of the world, accepts only 
science or its substitutes, or else the superstition which 
tries to assign the decision to faith even in the sphere of 
knowledge. It makes all science impossible because it 
judges natural events and historical narratives in ways 
contrary to the laws of science, and confuses God’s working 
with worldly happenings, God with the world. Under the 


Lrue Nature of Religion 39 


influence of such presuppositions the faith of the educated 
man becomes “uncertain knowledge ” (opinion), and re- 
ligion poor popular philosophy. The true goal is the 
perfect scientific apprehension of the world which is, for 
faith, also the perfect revelation of God. 

9. Where a real feeling of God revealing himself to the 
soul is present we have the substance of religion, even 
though its external manifestations are not yet developed. 
Hence mysticism is the most tolerable form of one-sided- 
ness in religion. Not, to be sure, in its naturalistic form, 
which has not been uncommon even in the Christian 
church, especially of the Orient, since the age of Neopla- 
tonism, for this confuses an esthetic with a religious 
process (experiencing God in ecstasy); but in the form 
which it has always exhibited in its sounder manifesta- 
tions. Where religion is determined by a one-sided pre- 
dominance of the factor of will (moralism), we are 
justified in inferring at least an unconscious life of reli- 
gious feeling. But there is always present a religious 
“poverty of blood.” And moralism threatens the life 
of religion as soon as mere acts of ritual are to satisfy 
the will of the divinity; or as soon as it is thought possi- 
ble to express the religious life in external “works” and 
not in the disposition of soul. The most ruinous one- 
sidedness in religion is intellectualism (orthodoxy, ration- 
alism). For firm views in the sphere of religion are very 
possible without real experience of the religious process, 
as soon as traditional dogmas, the faith of others, and 
philosophical doctrines gain theoretic assent by virtue of 
their authority (fides humana, sacrificium entellectus)., 


PAR Tie POSTULATES OF; THE “RELIGIOUS 
VIEW OF THE WORLD 


5. The Living Personal God 


1. RELIGIOUS apologetics must renounce alliance with 
those who put the mood of admiring reverence before the 
order, beauty, and unity in nature and art in the place of 
the consciousness of God, or allege it to be the same. As- 
suredly the God on whom the devout man knows himself 
to be absolutely dependent cannot be a personality in the 
sense of an individuality of the phenomenal world, and 
one might therefore be disposed to regard the word 
“personality”? as not applicable to him at all (Rickert). 
Has not the pantheistic tendency been due chiefly to the 
fact that “the cup of personality seemed too small for the 
opulence of the world?” But that which this word alone 
expresses distinctly to us, viz. consciousness and freedom, 
we cannot exclude from our conception of God without 
making the religious mood itself illusory; that is, we can- 
not dispense with the mood itself. Pantheism in every 
form, although it contains that remnant of religious feel- 
ing which is usually left in the transition from decayed 
popular religions to esoteric wisdom, is the formula for 
a mood akin to religion, but neither logically tenable nor 
consistent with real religion.t It demands of the thinker 


17{. Spencer, v. Hartmann. Strauss: “In the order of the universe and 
in its tendency to advance we recognize that which in human life we call rea- 
sonable and good. The universe becomes for us the source of the reasonable 
and good. It is not founded by a supreme reason, but on a supreme reason. 


40 


Lhe Living Personal God 41 


a feat such as only the power of undisciplined fancy 
is capable of. It is compelled to conceive of essence 
and manifestation, of cause and effect, as one, and to look 
on the unconscious as “ purposeful ” (v. Hartmann); 
whereas unconsciously working purpose is always the 
result of a process, never its beginning, and the concep- 
tion of worth in general has significance only in and 
through personality as such. It is compelled to conceive 
of ideas and laws without a thinking subject or a con- 
sciousness capable of framing abstractions; which corre- 
sponds to the lyric mood or the feeling roused by the 
enjoyment of a work of music, but abolishes logical 
thought. And practically pantheism demands of a think- 
ing and willing being absolute and inner dependence on 
the unconscious; if it does not actually put sympathy 
with a “divine” that is seeking deliverance in the place 
of religion. And yet in the presence of the unconscious 
the good man would have to feel himself to be something 
higher, and even if it crushed him irresistibly from the 
point of view of his external life, hold fast, like Prome- 
theus, to the consciousness of his greatness. 

All this quite aside from the fact, that if a personal 
God is denied, the order, beauty, and unity of the world 
would be only the continuous creation of man’s own 
spirit! Form, color, sound, that is, all by which we 
It is at the same time essence and manifestation, cause and effect. We 
demand loyalty to the universe, as the pious man of the old school does to 
his God” (gnosis, fantastic mythology). 

1 Schleiermacher finds the question in dispute between pantheism and the- 
ism indifferent, as is comprehensible in view of his conception of religion. 
But as soon as the longing for self-assertion on the part of the reasoning 
personality is included in religion, religious feeling implies the knowledge 


of a reasonable will that is master of the world. More detailed theological 
knowledge is here, of course, for the moment a matter of indifference. 


42 Postulates of the Religious View 


distinguish the world from a chaos of flying atoms, exist 
only in the souls of conscious beings, through their senses 
and for their feeling. If the “world” is not the creation 
of a personal God, then conscious “spirits”’ create it new 
every moment out of chaos. The stormy thoughts of J. G. 
Fichte in his first period of development are much more 
“reasonable” than the alleged clarity of the ordinary de- 
niers of the personality of God. But let us emphasize 
rather another point. Instead of making us free from the 
world and assuring us of the worth of our personality, this 
“religion of pantheism” would surrender us absolutely to 
the mechanism of the world as worthless and transitory 
phenomena. Resignation or pessimism would take the place 
of the faith that overcomes the world. The esthetic pleas- 
ure in the world as a “ work of art” fails him who is being 
crushed by the wheels of its perfect mechanism and who 
is unable to put himself outside the world as a disinter- 
ested spectator. Pantheism does away with true religion, 
even though it can beget temporarily, at a certain stage of 
culture and development, moods which have a kinship 
with religious elevation above the world and with the 
feeling of freedom founded on it. Metaphysics takes an 
attitude of indifference to the question concerning the 
“personality of the absolute.” Practical religion, on the 
other hand, is conditioned by it in its most essential life. 
For religion stands and falls with the qualitative distinc- 
tion of nature and personality, and the “creed” of panthe- 
ism identifies the two. 

2. The opinion which, since Spinoza, has governed wide 
circles of educated men, that God’s personality is a self- 
contradictory conception (because “absolute” and “ per- 
sonal” are mutually exclusive terms), is right only in this: — 


The Living Personal God 43 


that personality as applied to God cannot, as with us, 
imply a form of spiritual being to which the limitations of 
the non-ego attach; and that the Bible presents God’s 
personality in the fashion of man’s, for the reason that any 
other kind of presentation is excluded in popular and con- 
crete language. But theological thought is not tied to the 
symbolic conceptions of popular piety. And the conception 
of personality framed by science excludes the quantitative 
conception of the absolute as “undetermined” (Spinoza). 
It is incompatible with the language which makes the abso- 
lute the “indefinite” (mathematics) or the “abstract uni- 
versal’ (metaphysics). “ Empty space” can certainly not 
be personal. But with the qualitative conception of the 
absolute as that which is independent and complete in 
itself, personality can perfectly well be combined. For 
it negatives only its determination by something other 
than itself (limitation, dependence), not self-determination. 
The personalities that spring from the world can, to be 
sure, attain the consciousness of their personality only in 
the presence of a “non-ego.” But even they become 
truly personal only by the “non-ego”’ becoming for them 
more and more the consciousness of the freedom of the 
ego. If personality did not exist in us as a potency, we 
could not become conscious of it by contact with the 
world. Hence the world does not make us personal, but 
only makes us conscious of our personality. And man 
becomes the more personal, the less he is determined by 
the external world, the more he conquers space and time 
in thought and the moral life, the more perfectly that 
which has touched him from without becomes the free 
and independent content of his inner life. The perfect 
spiritual man would be one completely personal and yet 


44 Postulates of the Religious View 


not needing any longer the reaction of the world at all. 
Such a state cannot, it is true, be pictured by us, but is, © 
nevertheless, conceivable. 

Thus God could attain personal from impersonal 
being only by contact with the world. But as one who 
bears the world potentially in himself, he can have dcen 
personal in himself from all eternity. He cannot be con- 
ceived of as @ personality alongside of others, but can be 
conceived as ¢ke personality which includes all other per- 
sonalities in conscious freedom. In order to free the 
thought of God from the limitations involved in the per- 
sonality of phenomenal man, we need not renounce the 
idea of personality (which expresses precisely the quality 
of our being which is above the world), but we must 
conceive of the process of “becoming” and the “non- 
personal” background of personality as absent. We do 
not pass from imperfect to perfect phenomena by omitting 
in thought that in which their relative perfection con- 
sists, but by turning our eyes away from the limitations 
of this perfection. The God of religion must therefore 
be conceived of, not as non-personal, but as the perfect 
personality, over against which man is only a non- 
personal being becoming personal.! And the thought of 
the personal God makes human culture and morality a 
slavishly heteronomous one (v. Hartmann) only if God 
is conceived of as a personality alongside of ours, not as 
the absolute personality in which all others rest. For then 
our reason becomes a revelation of the divine, our con- 
science God’s voice. In obedience to God we become free. 


1 The doctrine of the Trinity is the Christian attempt to make the person- 
ality of God comprehensible without dependence on the world (Logos, ideal 
world). 


Revelation 45 


With a childish conception of the personality of God, hope 
of reward and slavish fear may disfigure morality, but not 
with the Christian view, even if it is childlike and without 
scientific clearness. For the spiritual and moral concep- 
tion of God and the faith in God as our Father, as well as 
the impression of the person of Jesus, suffice to counteract 
all danger. On the other hand, it is precisely pantheism 
that can never be just to the absolute worth of the moral 
task. If the personal in the world becomes an evanescent 
phenomenal form, if it furnishes to man neither permanent 
aims nor values valid in themselves, morality loses its cate- 
gorical character, and man’s struggle for civilization be- 
comes more or less “love’s labor lost;” “all is vanity.” 
Hence religion and morality will, with good conscience, 
hold fast to the postulate of the living personal God. 
But science must declare itself: wholly incompetent in the 
dispute between pantheism and theism. For it starts with 
the presupposition of the phenomenal world, and has no 
right to pass judgment on the ultimate conditions of its 
existence. Whether the system of nature, whose laws it 
investigates, is born of chance or of a divine creative will, 
whether an immanent unconscious system of law rules 
in it or a conscious supernatural wisdom, are questions 
simply outside the sphere where science is valid. And 
the perfect system of law in the world, is not in contra- 
diction with that freedom of the personal God, from which 
proceed reason, liberty, and order. 


6. Revelation 


I. Although religion is produced by a psychological 
process, nevertheless it can be evoked only by God ; that 
is, it is impossible without a revelation of God, if it is not to 


46 Postulates of the Religious View 


become a mere illusion of human wishes or be transformed 
into metaphysics. And God cannot be the living God 
without being revealed in some effect; that is, without 
something above the world making itself known in the 
phenomenal world. The fact of religion in itself bears 
witness to God’s working uninterruptedly in the life of 
man. “He has not left himself without a witness” (Rom. 
1, 19 f.; Acts 14,17). He discloses himself in the im- 
pulse to religion in the soul that cannot be extinguished 
by sin, and in an eternal almighty exercise of power 
in nature and history (vevelatio generalis). Even in the 
most debased religions this revelation bears witness to 
itself as a training for the kingdom of God. Only on the 
basis of it is true religion historically intelligible and no 
longer an incomprehensible and isolated marvel. But 
every historical religion presupposes a special historical 
divine revelation which determines the character of the 
piety it nourishes (vevelatio specialis). He only is devout 
in the Christian sense who lets himself be determined in 
his personal life by the historical revelation of God which 
he finds in Jesus. Natural religion has always existed 
only as a remnant of historical religions which have de- 
generated into popular metaphysics, and has won a hear- 
ing only where a religion has ceased to exist. 

2. Hence religion can be defended only by justifying 
the fact of revelation; Christianity, only by justifying the 
Biblical history of revelation. But it is a question only 
of the actual revelation on which religion (or Christianity) 
rests; not of the defence of everything that has attached 


itself at any time, in the shape of historical traditions or — 


intellectual opinions, to the belief in this revelation. 
That can easily be left to historical and scientific criticism. 


a Te 


Leevelation 47 


Its formal defence entangles theology in an uncalled-for 
and hopeless struggle with the development of true 
science. 

3. Revelation, as the source of religion, cannot be con- 
ceived of as a miraculous communication of metaphysical, - 
moral, or theological truths, which justifies its divine source 
by appearing in a form that excludes a natural origin 
(miracle, prophecy).1 This conception of revelation, for 
which Supernaturalism and Rationalism have fought, and 
which attempts at mediation have not improved,? is neither 
intelligible nor tenable. It would compel Christians to 
maintain the perfect infallibility of everything contained 
in the Bible, at least of all the statements in it having to 
do with morals and religion, and would make at bottom a 
real history of revelation impossible. It would have 
to base the assurance of faith on the historical certainty of 
the marvellous stories reported, and on the authenticity 
and uncorrupted transmission of the books of the Bible 
(fides humana, historica). And it would be simply use- 
less for the purpose for which it is required. For religion 
springs from a sense of the divine life, not from theo- 
retic knowledge; and in order to overcome the obstacles 


1 For Protestant Christians revelation becomes, on such an assumption, 
practically identical with its Biblical record, although the two are theoretically 
always distinguished. For a doctrine always comes to the consciousness of 
those living later only as “tradition,” oral or written. 

2 Supernatural Rationalism (miraculous revelation of truths of the reason) 
and rationalistic Supernaturalism (divine revelations which can be gauged by 
reason). On the basis of these presumptions, only that thoroughgoing Ration- 
alism for which Moses and Jesus, Zoroaster and Buddha, Socrates and Plato, 
are spiritual heroes in the evolution of reason, and that real Supernaturalism 
which thinks of mysteries which are unattainable to fallen human reason and 
which God makes known by miracle, while all other religions contain human 
falsehoods, are logically consistent. 


48 Postulates of the Religious View 


to religion that have their ground in sin, there is needed 
the rousing of right feelings, not the communication of a 
higher knowledge. 

This scholastic conception of revelation contradicts 
(1) history, which shows us in religions of very different 
worth a common content which cannot be explained by 
an original historical revelation! It contradicts (2) psy- 
chological law. An actual speech of God is inconceivable. 
Only in extremely few cases could we assume ecstasies, 
theophanies, and angelic messengers, even according to 
traditional ideas. Hence the birth of new theoretic knowl- 
edge in the soul, even in the religious sphere, could be 
conceived of only under the conditions under which such 
knowledge arises in general, that is, by experience and by 
thought. And even if we should assume that God could 
find a means to impress such communications on the 
agents, the preparation would manifestly be lacking for 
appropriating them, and it would be wholly impossible for 
them to distinguish such communications from the knowl- 
edge which they had received from others or won by the 
activities of their own reason. They could not gain con- 
viction by purely religious ways. Hence the fact that such 
knowledge was revealed would at most disclose itself in- 
wardly, by its being in its nature “secrets” which tran- 
scended human thought. But the few “ mysteries ” of this 
sort in Christianity are, as a matter of fact, what they are 


1 The contents of the first chapters of Genesis are so closely connected with 
the Chaldean myths that we should have to think, with the church fathers, of 
a borrowing from the Bible by the pagan sages, or, with Gladstone and Ebrard, 
of an (absolutely arbitrarily assumed) original tradition out of the age before 
the dispersal of mankind, in order to maintain the supernaturalistic conception 
of revelation. Both will seem equally unthinkable to any one who has an 
unprejudiced historical judgment. 


‘ 
i 


Leevelation 49 


only through their later theological development (Trinity, 
Christology); whereas their original content has a genu- 
inely supernatural character, to be sure, but in its logical 
form by no means goes beyond the human knowledge 
of the time, e.g. the philosophic (Logos). And the ex- 
ternal proof of the supernatural character of a revelation 
adduced from miracles and prophecies would compel us to 
base religious certainty on an_ historical verdict that 
would necessarily always be called in question anew by 
‘scientific criticism (Lessing against Goetze). But, with 
growing culture, even the devout man must become more 
and more sceptical toward the accounts of miraculous 
events. While the uneducated, even in times of high 
scientific culture, could remain undisturbed in his belief, 
the man of learning would have to accept a painful un- 
| certainty in the heart of his religious life, or else suppress 
(it by force at the expense of his scientific conscience. 
Christianity, whose sacred writings (in distinction, é.2., from 
the Koran or from the Vedas) offer themselves frankly as 
historical products of human effort, furnishing unambigu- 
ous evidence of development and of contradictions, and 
which contain so little of mysterious metaphysical wis- 
dom, would least of all offer means for the defence of such 
a conception of revelation. 

4. The revelation which religious apologetics has to de- 
fend can be conceived of only as an act of God, by which 
he evokes in the souls of men the consciousness of himself 
as the one who influences their life in the world and lends 


1Tn such a conflict, faith would, of course, show itself stronger than the 
scientific impulse. But “piety would walk with barbarism, learning with un- 
belief” (Schleiermacher to Liicke), and the moral culture of the race would 
sicken of an incurable wound. Knowledge does not turn back. We can 
avail nothing against truth. 


E 


50 Postulates of the Religious View 


it power to rise above the world to its eoal-s it icantbere 
question only of a trust in the self-revealing divinity and 
its aims and an absolute devotion to it being genuinely 
begotten in the soul. Neither, however, is accomplished by 
philosophic or scientific doctrine. 

Scientific knowledge of nature and history can neither 
increase nor diminish the religious impression. The 
yixpoé are the virtuosos of religion. He who conceives of 
the sun as revolving around the earth, and takes Heracles 
for an historical figure like Charlemagne, is not the less, or 
less genuinely, devout on that account than the greatest 
historian or naturalist. Hence the communication of such 
knowledge would not be revelation for the purposes of 
religion, but a miraculous substitute for scientific toil. 
And since religion has to do, not with God as an object of 
knowledge, but with his effect on the salvation of men, it 
is not, in real revelation, a question of promoting meta- 
physical knowledge (copia Tob xoopov). As determining 
our life in the world, God can reveal himself only in “ sav- 
ing manifestations,” 7.e. in facts of the inner and outer life . 
which bear irresistible witness to the soul of a divine goal 
of life. Facts in history and in the life of the soul gain the 
significance of revelations when they disclose the religious 
relation between God and man with fresh and compelling 
force (Lipsius). For the religiously receptive soul such a 
“ manifestation’ of God has, of course, a direct effect as 
“ inspiration ” in the religious sense, 7.é. aS providing a new 
view of God, of the world, and of man. But strictly God 
reveals himself in facts (history). Something hitherto shut 
up in the secrecy of the divine life enters the life of human- 
ity, to evoke in it a new attitude toward God and toward its 
own goal. What is revealed must previously have been 


Revelation 51 


‘mystery ” (a7roxadvrrev). But it is made known in the 
revelation (pavapody), and so ceases to be a real mystery. 
The content of revelation is always “ salvation.” Without 
the special religious receptivity of the soul (prophetic qual- 
ity) external facts would, it is true, not be able to evoke 
the religious impression. But revelation cannot evoke 
through them doctrine, but only enthusiasm. And even 
where, as an historical fact, a body of doctrines and of 
forms of ritual has proceeded from such agents, they prop- 
agate religion only in case they are able to reproduce in 
some degree in the souls of their fellows the religious ex- 
perience which made them prophets. The value of a 
religion depends on the completeness and significance of 
the facts of its revelation and on the purity and strength 
of the religious feeling in the agents of the revelation. 

5. We can speak of revelation in a general sense wher- 
ever, in nature and history, in human fortunes and spiritual 
experiences, the impression of the divine in the world, 
which the mass of men does not feel, approves itself pow- 
erful in receptive souls. It was in this sense that Hamann, 
Herder, Jacobi, and Schleiermacher (Reden iiber die Reli- 
gion) spoke of revelation. The mysteries and terrors of na- 
ture, her lavish blessings and her menacing dangers, hours 
of joy, distress, and rescue, crises in the lives of nations, 
wonderfully moving experiences in the inner and outer life 
of the individual, carry such revelations with them. Na- 
ture becomes a temple of God, history the “holy place” 
in it, the life of the soul its “ holy of holies.” And in a 
humanity not determined by the world (sinless), this 
revelation would suffice to evoke true religion. Every 
human being would be his own prophet. But the soul 


1 Tt will not remain “ unintelligible.” 


a2 Postulates of the Religious View 


governed by fleshly impulses does not feel these impres- 
sions at all, or feels them dimly and for the most part 
only in the strange and the terrible, in ecstasy and dream. 
The obscure echo of such a “revelation of God in nature 
and history,” which is audible in all ages, like stray notes 
of a tune, explains the element of truth in natural reli- 
gions. It is not, as has been naively thought, the persist- 
ence of a more or less dimmed and forgotten primeval 
revelation made to the earliest races of mankind, but the 
light of God, broken into various colors and variously ob- 
scured, illuminating the world. There is no such thing as 
an absolutely false religion. But a revelation looking to 
the salvation of the moral personality was not possible on 
such assumptions. This could become effective in sinful hu- 
manity only historically (vevelatio specialts). Special saving 
acts of God in nature and history that foreshadowed the 
kingdom of God, evoked in the souls of men, whose religious 
endowments were equal to it, the impression of the real 
will of God toward men and the world with overwhelming 
force; and this made them interpreters of God to their fel- 
lows, founders of religions, and channels of religious enthu- 
siasm (revelatio mediata). This revelation in the narrower 
sense presupposes (1) men of religious genius, for whom 
religion could be a profession. For in all higher life, 
personalities endowed with genius are the sources of life 
for the circles dependent on them. (2) It demands acts of 
God, which form a history of the evolution of the kingdom 
of God, whether they occur in the national life, in nature, 
or in the life of the individual, and whether they are expe- 


1 Prodigia, etc. Hence the disposition to find in the “unnatural” the 
mark of revelation. The “doubling” of one’s own life in dream has perhaps 
often worked here as motive. 


ee ee ee 


Revelation 53 


rienced with clear consciousness or under conditions of 
intensified feeling (in ecstasy, visions). Such agents of 
revelation are, of course, miraculous, as is also the history 
in which God has revealed himself to them, and through 
them to man. They cannot be explained from the laws 
and forces of the causal sequence that excludes all pur- 
pose as such, as far as these are accessible to us. For the 
unbeliever they are strange products of the power that 
governs things, —a power incomprehensible to him, too, 
in the last analysis. For the believer they are miracles of 
God. But in themselves they involve no contradiction of 
the continuity of law in nature. Such continuity offers, 
as we know, no obstacle to genius of incomprehensible 
splendor proceeding, in every intellectual sphere, from 
environments that afford no explanation of it; nor to 
nations and individuals having experiences that are de- 
cisive for their whole development, though there is no 
cause for them accessible to human knowledge. The 
highest example that can be conceived in this realm is a 
human personality which, with its whole nature and ex- 
perience, becomes the full and clear expression of God’s 
will to men. It is, then, for those who accept it, itself the 
historical revelation of God (Adyos cap yevouevos), subject 
and object of the religion whose agent it is. 

6. Even where true revelation is present, the perfect 
religion cannot exist from the beginning, but must come 
into being in history. In the spiritual history of man- 
kind those who achieve the task attain the goal only by 
standing on the shoulders of their predecessors, and by 
reaping the fruit of their toil and their sufferings, of their 
errors and limitations. Until the time was fulfilled, the 
perfect revelation would not have found a soul that could 


54 Postulates of the Religious View 


receive it, and a prophet of the highest truth no com- 
munity to propagate it. Only a genuinely historical reve- 
lation in a religious race (people of God) could give birth 
to the highest religion. Else the divine light could have 
flashed out only for a moment, with no human com- 
munity to be enlightened and warmed. And when such 
a history has accomplished itself, a race has bestowed 
the highest gift possible on humanity, even though, as 
race, it perish in the process, like the oyster in giving 
birth to the pearl. The agents of revelation must under- 
stand and utter the new religious life in the fashion of 
thought and in the speech of their time and stage of 
culture, and cannot aim to give theoretic instruction, but 
only to exert practical influence. They have, to be sure, 
the advantage over others of having the true view of 
God and the world, one based on religious conviction ; 
but not a more perfect theory of the world and of God. 
In their “doctrine” they deliver, not the revelation as 
such, but their understanding of the revelation, an under- 
‘standing conditioned by their culture and personality. 
A religious community arises when a group of men lets 
itself be inwardly moved by what the founders of religion 
have experienced as revelation, that is, when it shares 
their spirit. The actual existence of the revelation, can, of 
course, not be proved scientifically. It can make itself 


known only by the fact that men are moved by a com- ° 


mon religious spirit. And even then it will be certain 
only to those who feel this spirit in themselves (faith). 
But no scientific knowledge or principles can compel us 
to deny such a revelation as impossible. ‘And whoever 


believes in it will be compelled thereby to no distrust of 


real science. 


Miracle and Mystery in Revelation 55 


7. Miracle and Mystery in Revelation 


I. Faith in the real existence of a revelation of God does 
not depend, as has already been shown, on the historical 
certainty of the miracles reported in connection with it, 
nor does it compel us to accept any special theological or 
philosophical view concerning miracles. And no devout 
Christian will in our age expect to be able to prove to the 
non-Christian the truth of the Christian revelation by point- 
ing to the miracles and prophecies narrated in the Bible, 
as early theology has frankly done. Even the resurrec- 
tion of Christ and its significance for the Christian reli- 
gion are no exception. He who fancies that he can 
convince a sceptic of the resurrection, as an empirical 
fact of history, on the basis of existing documents, has no 
clear conception either of the nature of scientific certainty, 
or of the real situation of existing tradition. It is not 
accidental nor indifferent that the risen Christ revealed 
himself only to those who believed in him or who 
struggled against belief in him, like Paul. The principles 
of historical study have so changed, that a narrative of 
deeds and words which cannot be explained by the laws 
of nature, cannot now be used as proof of the immediate 
divine dignity of the incident in question and its tradi- 
tion, but is regarded as a ground for doubting the whole 
tradition. We believe, not because of, but in spite of, the 
miracle. But the fact of Christian belief in revelation 
being interwoven with the possibility and reality of miracles 
compels apologetics to take this question under considera- 
tion and to make it clear. And from the ordinary point of 
view it seems self-evident, that if God reveals himself in 
deeds, these deeds must stand out unmistakably from the 


56 Postulates of the Religious View 


range of ordinary events by virtue of their supernatural 
nature. ‘Wonder is faith’s dearest child.” 

2. Revelation, as an act of God, must be supernatural ; 
and as the disclosing of divine thoughts and purposes, it 
must be above reason, if nature and reason are under- 
stood in the empirical sense. And what is felt in the 
hearts of men as a new divine life is the absolutely inex- 
plicable, the mystery. Thus the Christian revelation 
carries the conviction with it of being to the ordinary con- 
ception of reason a ‘folly, even ane offence.” And the 
processes which go on in the souls of privileged person- 
alities must always have the character of a mystery. 
Individuum est ineffabile. The purpose as such is ‘‘ super- 
natural’; the divine purpose is entirely outside of the 
course of nature. And faith grasps, not the tangible 
reality, but something invisible that comes to expression 
*n it. He who robs religion of miracle and mystery 
dilutes it into morality and popular metaphysics. Hence 
without miracle and mystery in the real religious sense of 
the words, no revelation of God is conceivable. But this 
is by no means saying that every possible conception of 
miracle and mystery, even if they proceed from a thor- 
oughly irreligious view of the world, would have to be 
justified by faith in revelation. The interest of religion 
in miracle depends on two convictions. First, that the 
divine personality can be limited or checked in the realiza- 
tion of its ends and in its revelation by no conditions inher- 
ing in the world. Secondly, that God, if he reveals himself, 
will make his revelation, for those who are willing to open 
their minds to it, clearly and unmistakably distinguishable 
from all that aimless nature brings forth; that is, will 
express his purposeful divine will unmistakably in the 


Miracle and Mystery in Revelation 57 


facts of revelation. But the first conviction has in itself 
nothing to do with the question whether God realizes his 
ends as lord of a world governed by laws, or by action 
outside of these laws. And the second remains unaltered, 
whether the distinguishing characteristic of the facts of 
revelation lie in their religious and moral significance or 
in the inexplicability of their external form. Not faith, 
but the difference in scientific culture and view of the 
world, will be ultimately decisive of such questions. And 
we must not let ourselves be led astray by seeing that 
incomparable heroes of piety have, in ages lacking a scien- 
tific view of the world, understood their faith in miracles 
to imply necessarily the rejection of the reign of law in 
the world. 

The purely rationalistic and hence irreligious view of 
the world can look on the supernatural only as unnatural, 
the superrational only as irrational, the inexplicable only 
as a violation of law, since it knows no other nature, rea- 
son, and order than those to be known empirically. When 
it speaks of miracles, it can think only of events contrary 
to nature, which are distinguished from other events simply 
by their contradiction of the laws of nature (contra na- 
turam), not by the supernatural content and purpose which 
find expression in them. From this point of view two 
positions are possible that are wont to be maintained with 
equal fanaticism. Men deny miracles because they are 
moved more powerfully by the scientific view of the world 
than by religious impressions.1_ They declare it inconceiv- 
able that a divine act, by contradicting the laws of the 
world, should make void the rules of empirical phenomena, 


1 Even when they are only echoing the empty catchwords of Rationalism, 
that is, putting faith in authority over against faith in authority. 


58 Postulates of the Religious View 


and hold it far more probable in each individual case, that 
historical tradition, even under the most favorable con- 


ditions, has been corrupted, than that events which contra-. 


dict the laws of nature have really happened. Or else 
they accept miracles because the force of religious convic- 
tion is the more powerful. Then they conceive of God's 
act in miracle as one essentially akin with the working of 
natural causes, but overcoming them by an arbitrary act 
of omnipotence. The normal course of the world seems 
to them a compromise; miracle, a conflict. And their very 
denial of the absolute validity of the order of nature gives 
them a pleasurable consciousness of the power of their 
own religious life over against the “stormy petrel, reason ”’ 
or “unbelieving science.” And they like to call the assump- 
tions of the latter irreligious, just as their opponents, under 
the influence of intellectual fanaticism, see in belief in mir- 
acles fanaticism or an evil purpose. 

3. If faith were really bound up with this conception 
of miracle, at a certain stage of scientific culture a schism 
would occur in every civilized race. The educated classes 
would have to turn away incredulously from revelation 
and religion, or else would have, with uncertainty of soul, 
to refuse to the convictions that determine without excep- 
tion their thought and actions elsewhere admission to this 
hallowed sphere. Of such unhappy discord and such 
crippling uncertainty even such resolute Christians as 
B. Niebuhr have left moving confessions. The devout 
man who thinks scientifically could not survive this con- 
test. For the laws that hold for the knowledge of 


1 So of mystery, as something akin to rational knowledge, but transcending 
the laws of the reason; of “ prophecy,” as a knowledge contradictory to the 
laws of the human mind. 


a sf 


Miracle and Mystery in Revelation 59 


nature and history are either simply an illusion, or they 
admit no exception in the sphere of external phenomena. 
What we call laws of nature are nothing else than the 
way in which the causal connection of things is appre- 
hended by us, a way approved by continually recurring 
experience and by ever repeated experiments (explana- 
tions of the real in nature). Without the assumption of 
this causal connection, not only all science, but also all 
practical action in the world and on the world, would be 
impossible. All measurement and weighing, all calcula- 
tion and planning, every scheme and every undertaking 
of man, would, without this presupposition, be an adven- 
turous folly. No thinking man doubts that the laws of 
this sequence are not yet even remotely known to man, 
that perhaps they can never be known to man with man’s 
senses except in a very small degree. But the existence 
of law, and the impossibility of an external phenomenon 
that contradicts it, form the tacit assumption of all our 
thought and action. It would, to be sure, be rash to 
assert, that out of the conditions and factors known to 
us that result must always proceed that has proceeded 
from them according to experience hitherto. New forces, 
unknown to us, might intervene which, by changing the 
conditions, would also change the result. But the sub- 
jection of things to law would then find expression just as 
much as where the usual result followed. 

It is true that piety, as such, knows nothing of phenom- 
enal conditions that could limit God’s will. And it looks, 
for its part, only at the acting personal God, and does 
not inquire into the system of nature in which a fact of 
revelation is realized. But the order of the world is, for 
the devout, the forms established by God for his activity, 


60 Postulates of the Religious View 


by the violation of which he would capriciously destroy 
his own sacred order. And piety sees in all phenomena 
the free creative expression of a purposeful divine will. 
But as soon as the first naive conception is outgrown, it 
ceases to feel in them the necessity of a miracle “‘ contrary 
to nature.” For the devout man, familiar with scientific 
thought, God’s will works, not alongside of the world in 
the world’s fashion, but in the world in a fashion above 
it. Neither a conflict of divine and phenomenal activities, 
nor an individual phenomenon apart from phenomenal 
conditions, is conceivable in the world. Eternity cannot 
come into conflict with time, omnipresence with space, nor 
spirit with the phenomenal world; nor does piety need a 
miracle in which the divine will should suspend the order 
of the world it has established, and produce an individual 
phenomenon in a fashion above the world and yet akin 
to the world. Spirit does not work like nature. It has 
no resemblance at all to the causal system of the phe- 
nomenal world. It may guide the world to its goal by 
creative and purposeful methods, just as it has fixed its 
goal for it. But it cannot come into collision with it. 
Nature and miracle cannot be opposites, because they 
do not move on the same plane.? 

Hence the scholastic conception of miracle would make 
belief in revelation impossible or uncertain, at least for 
cultivated men, and leave the full joy in believing only to 
the unthinking. But it is not the conception of miracle 
that is really connected with faith. Faith sees miracles 


1 Especially shortsighted is the basing of belief in the miraculous contra 
naturam on the experience of the miracle of the New Birth, which, “ super- 
natural” and “ mysterious” as it certainly is, is wrought entirely in accordance 
with the laws of spiritual life, 


Miracle and Mystery in Revelation 61 


everywhere where it sees God’s revelation unmistakable 
and mighty in events. It does not ask whether this 
phenomenon has also a natural side or not. And faith’s 
conception of miracle is the only one known to Holy 
Scripture, as to all vital piety of antiquity... The devout of 
the Bible lived in the undoubted assurance that there can be 
no worldly limitations to God’s will. And since they never 
entertained the idea of a system of natural law ordained 
by God, but regarded every individual natural phenomenon 
with naive piety as an act of the personal God, they tell 
with perfect naiveté stories which in the mouth of an edu- 
cated man of our time would certainly presuppose a miracle 
contra naturam. But they themselves do not think of as- 
suming a conflict between God and the order of nature, 
for the latter they do not know at all. They know, of 
course, of ordinances which God has set inviolably for the 
forces of nature in relation to one another (Jer. 33, 20, 
25. Ps. 104, 9; 148, 6. Job 38, 10), but not of a unt 
versal system and its laws. And they talk of miracles, 
even where we see only familiar natural phenomena, when- 
ever these arouse in them the impression of divine activity 
with special force. Hence not the violation of the order 
of nature, but the impression of a divine purposeful activ- 
ity, is for them the decisive element in the miraculous. 
They naturally call only such events miracles as reveal 
God’s power by their splendor and grandeur.2 But what 
really constitutes an act a miracle, according to their con- 
ception, is not its contradiction of natural laws, of which 

1Cf. Alttestamentliche Theologie, ch. 29. 

SUF Ps. 06,%33) 98,. 13 107,33 1126, 3. 

8 Noraah, gedolah, mofel, pele, Svvdues, Téepara, Even significant names 


and personalities are signs and wonders to the people, if they reveal God’s 
thoughts (Is. 7, 14; 8, 18). 


62 Postulates of the Religtous View 


they do not think at all, but its significance as a powerful 
and unambiguous witness of God’s will in his plan of 
salvation.1 The scholastic conception of miracle is not a 
child of religion, but a product of false metaphysics. It 
subtracts from the creative wisdom and foreknowledge of 
God what it aims to assign to his power (arbitrary ca- 
price) in the world. And the narratives of Holy Scripture 
would bear witness to him only if we assumed, not the vital 
conception of miracle and the complete indifference to 
a scientific knowledge of the world which characterize 
piety, but the reflections and scruples of modern science. 
We should be bound by a mechanical theory of inspiration 
to hold all statements of the sacred writers infallible, in 
the sense which they would bear now in the mouth of 
educated men of our own day, and all their narratives 
authentic as measured by the standard of our scientific 
criticism; whereas the writers themselves report the most 
tremendous as well as the most commonplace things with 
perfect naiveté as acts of an almighty God, and do not 
think at all of a system of nature. 

4. Piety would have an interest in making miracle in- 
consistent with nature only if this were the sole sure mark 
of the divine character of a revelation. But such is by no 
means the case, true though it be that faith always sees in 
an act of revelation only God’s free activity, and does not 
question at all concerning its place in the system of nature. 
Those who received the revelation did not need miracles 
in the scholastic sense at all, to be assured that what they 
experienced was really revelation. For this the inner con- 
viction that God spoke to them in acts was enough, with- 
out asking whether these acts presupposed or suspended 

1 Old Testament, onpetov. 


Ee ee 


Miracle and Mystery in Revelation 63 


the order of nature. And without this religious convic- 
tion, even a miracle contra naturam could not have given 
them the necessary certainty. For they themselves held 
miraculous activities of evil powers as possible (Deut. 13, 
I-3; Matt. 24, 24). And how could they have distin- 
guished them empirically from the divine ones? How 
could they have distinguished what was really “contrary 
to nature” from what was merely incomprehensible to 
them, or experiences of the supersensual world from mere 
subjective processes? The element in revelation that was 
supernatural and superrational in the divine sense could 
approve itself to them, in the last analysis, only by its 
content, by the wealth of divine purpose, hidden from and 
contradictory to natural thought, which took the form of a 
higher wisdom in their souls. And only their own con- 
sciences could assure them of the divine character of the 
revelation, as these bowed, with or without assent of the 
will, beneath the voice of the master who was addressing 
them. It is certain that the moving and extraordinary 
character of what they experienced often strengthened 
them greatly in their task. And prophets have unques- 
tionably been little inclined to distinguish critically be- 
tween the subjective and the objective. But in themselves 
ecstasy and vision could just as well be illusion as reality. 
And events which seemed to be miracles could proceed 
from the realm of the evil as well as of the good. Only 
the religious assurance in their hearts could really convince 
the prophets. 

5. And the later adherents of a revealed religion can 
just as little expect or gain from miracles contra naturam 
the assurance that the revelation in which their religion 
has its origin is truly divine. All religions adorn the his- 


64 Postulates of the Religious View 


tory of their revelation with miracles. The incompatibil- 
ity of the events they relate with the order of nature is 
common to all. Even the Christian religion, when it is a 
question of monstrous contradiction of nature, by no 
means carries off the palm, ¢.g. in comparison with the 
Indian religions. And the tendency to take such tales 
for embellishments and additions will be essentially the 
same among all who have the historical sense in the pres- 
ence of religious documents, and will be an increasing one. 
Only when belief in the divine truth of a revelation is 
already present can we meet the marvellous tales associ- 
ated with it with the assumption that the external course 
of its history can be distinguished from other history by 
- distinct traces of divine activity. Nor is the devout man 
interested in the scientific question concerning the relation 
of the divine activity in miracle to the system of nature. 
He only asks whether God’s activity, with its purposes for 
him, impresses itself powerfully on his soulas a fact. And 
he knows nothing of events in which God's purposes are 
not at work, or of a natural law which could interpose as 
an obstacle to God’s activity and aims. 

But the believer will also not conceal from himself, even 
if miracles seem certain to him, the fact that his assump- 
tion can have no validity for those who have not had the 
same religious experience. And the miraculous narratives 
of the Bible, in their variety and naivete, cannot be 
grouped under any one of the heads under which a modern 
theology of compromise has tried to put them. The reflec- 
tion that God can by his creative act call into being some- 
thing external to the world, which then becomes a part of 
the system of the world and its laws (Rothe), will never 
explain the throng of prodigies and miracles of healing of 


Miracle and Mystery in Revelation 65 


the Bible story, or seem tenable to him for whom the world 
is the infinite realm of spatial and material being. And 
even the thought, so just in itself, that the empirical world 
known to us is, nevertheless, not the whole world, and 
that its laws cannot as yet explain everything (Lange, 
Krauss), will not suffice. For aside from the fact that it 
simply surrenders the conception of miracle contra natu- 
vam, this point of view might, it is true, explain a new 
heaven and a new earth and their becoming visible amid 
the conditions of the present, but would never explain 
events like the standing still of the sun or the changing 
of water into wine. Moreover, from this point of view 
we should expect a more and more perfect dawning of 
higher laws, not their sporadic appearance in a far distant 
past and in connection with personalities that (as, for 
instance, Elisha) play a part only in the periphery of 
revelation. 

6. The miracle with which religious faith has to do, — 
to-day as in the times of Biblical history, is no mere 
story out of the past, but something living and present. 
Faith sees in the world, not a mechanism in which dead 
laws reign, but the continuous revelation of God’s will 
for the weal of the church and its members. It believes 
that no worldly power and no independent law of nature 
can hinder God from realizing omnipotently his gracious 
ends. It does not know a God fettered by the laws of 
nature, who breaks his chain here or there, and then, 
for thousands of years, abdicates his rule in favor of a 
soulless system of causes. And when the devout man feels 
himself guided and determined in his own life by God’s 
gracious will, he reveres God’s miracle without asking for 
the natural conditions of his experiences, and without the 

F 


66 Postulates of the Religious View 


least interest in the question whether God, in order to 
work for him, has checked and interrupted the course of 
nature, or has created something new, in which the natural 
factors have no share. He bows in gratitude before God’s 
omnipotence and would find it intolerable to be compelled 
to set any bounds to his trust in it. Of a possible contra- 
diction between his religious experience and the laws of 
true science, however, he knows of himself nothing. For 
him the scientific verdict on events has no significance 
at all. The faith in miracles of naive and vital piety © 
stands beside the artificial theory concerning miracles of 
a reflective age that in general passes judgment from the 
world’s point of view, like a good conscience beside a bad 
one that has been artificially appeased. 

7, A dispute between faith and science could arise 
only through the historical verdict on the miracles nar- 
rated in the Bible, which to our fashion of thought really 
do contradict in part the order of nature, little as their 
narrators knew it. Now, unless apologetics is committed 
to a definite theory of inspiration, we can by no means 
recognize the obligation to take up arms for the historical 
trustworthiness of all the miraculous narratives of Scrip- 
ture, or to make the credibility of the Christian revelation 
depend on it. The Biblical agents of revelation are them- 
selves far from doing this. Even Jesus, certain though it 
is that his miraculous powers must have reénforced his con- 
viction of his calling, refused to prove his divine mission 
by a miracle of the sort demanded by the opinion ruling 
among his people, and rather hid than proclaimed his 
miracles of healing. And for miraculous narratives out 
of ancient times and circles that were not capable of 
scientific criticism, the claim cannot possibly be made that 


Miracle and Mystery in Revelation 67 


they be received without doubt or criticism. Highly en- 
dowed religious natures are precisely the ones which rarely 
have the gift of calm historical observation. And a modi- 
fication of narratives on the lips of the pious in the 
direction of the miraculous, is always more probable, even 
under the most favorable conditions of transmission, than 
the occurrence of events that really contradict the laws of 
nature. The miracle of revelation, however, viz. that God 
through the historical Jesus enters into intercourse with 
the hearts of men, condemning and approving, has simply 
nothing to do with the historicity of the external marvels 
related of Jesus, or with the question of what relation they 
bear to the course of nature and its laws. 

8. Hence it cannot be the task of apologetics to defend 
miracles contra naturam as a presupposition of revelation, 
especially of the Christian. It understands that our age, 
in distinction from that of antiquity, is so strongly pene- 
trated by the scientific view of the course of nature that 
hardly an educated man among us would let himself be 
convinced, even if he were an eye-witness, that he had 
experienced a miracle and not something that he merely 
could not understand at the time. And the narratives of 
devout folk with no aptitude for science cannot impose on 
us the duty of looking on the literal historicity of the mar- 
vels reported by them as an essential part of Christian 
faith, willing though we may be to bow our spirits to the 
enthusiasm and piety of the narrators. But the Christian 
apologete will, of course, believe the revelation of God in 
Jesus to be miraculous in the religious sense of the word. 
And it will be to him a scientific satisfaction to make clear 
to himself, even in details, the relation of the religious 
faith in miracles to the scientific view of the world. His 


68 Postulates of the Religious View 


faith, of course, by no means depends on this attempt and 
its success or failure. Nor will his scientific conviction of 
the reign of law be shaken if he has to leave a part of the 
facts unexplained. | 

Jesus recognized with joy his power to perform miracu- 
lous acts as a witness of God to his mission, and looked on 
the disregard of them as a sign of his opponents’ hardness 
of heart. His assumption of the rdle of Christ is, in his 
age and his race, psychologically inexplicable without the 
consciousness of such powers. His disciples, too, speak 
of miracles of their own wrought in his strength.’ And 
without the fact of the resurrection of Jesus, the origin of 
the church cannot be understood. Hence, although we 
are far from wishing to prove the truth of Christianity by 
the credibility of the miraculous narratives of the Bible, 
and willingly grant that only when the great spiritual 


miracle of the personality of Jesus has won the heart will 


the disposition arise to adopt, in the history that leads up 
to him and bears witness to him, other standards than 
those we use elsewhere, nevertheless, we cannot evade the 
task of trying to comprehend also the miraculous element 
in his history. But this can be amply done without our 
resorting to the conception of miracle as a suspension of 
the system of natural law; provided only we refuse to rec- 
ognize the claims of modern culture (which is not scientific, 
but sceptical) to understand the world as a whole from the 
law of causation and its mechanism. 

9. We have the daily experience that processes of 
nature play a marked réle in the development of the inner 
life of human beings, although the two spheres have in 
themselves no inward connection. And this neither the 


1 Rom. 15,18 f. 2Cor. 12,12. Heb. 2, 4. 


Miracle and Mystery in Revelation 69 


believing nor the unbelieving view of the world can ex. 
plain. The purely scientific view of the world will content 
itself with proving, or assuming, for every factor involved 
in either, the necessary conditions of a physical and psy- 
chological sort. Their coincidence it must look on as 
chance (purposeless), while it of course flatly denies chance 
in the sense of an event without adequate conditions. 
Faith will have no interest in the conditions of the two 
processes; but their coincidence it will feel to be purposed, 
and interpret it by the will of God, which guides both 
spheres as one, according to eternal thoughts.1. If such a 
coincidence has decisive significance for the religious and 
moral development of the individual, and is so felt by 
him, he experiences for himself a miracle, z.e. a leading in 
which God reveals himself unmistakably to him as an 
active force. Every devout man will experience such 
“miracles” in his own person or in those around him, — 
in unexpected rescue and help, in moving experiences, in 
strange turns of fortune which initiate in his soul critica] 
changes. And he believes in such miracles and prays in 
this faith. If he happen to be an agent of revelation, and 
thus has a determining influence on religion, his experi- 
ence is a miracle, not merely for himself, but also for the 
members of the religious community founded by him. To 
conceive of the possibility of such miracles being limited by 
natural law, or to look for the conditions of their occurrence 
in an order of nature conceived of as other than God’s will, is 
impossible for piety. It would itself perish at the instant 
in which it made such an admission. And every one who 


1 Harmonia prestabilita, although not in the sense of Leibnitz. We 
think, not of a divine will preceding the world in time, but of an eternal 
divine will realized in time, 


70 Postulates of the Religious View 


is certain of being an agent of revelation must also have 
the assurance in his soul that such a coincidence cannot 
fail him, if he really desire it for the spiritual necessities of 
his mission (Holy Spirit). The assurance that God “ever 
hears,” that it is not presumptuous to promise and expect 
a sign, “though it be deep as hell and high as heaven,” 
belongs to the prophetic calling (Is. 7, Matt. 11, John 
11). But piety has, on the other hand, not the least in- 
terest in maintaining that in such cases the divine will is 
wrought entirely apart from the aid of the laws of nature, 
or is contrary to them. And he who has not the assurance 
of being an agent of divine revelation will feel it presump- 
tion to count on such signs. He will experience them in 
secret, in his heart, but will not proclaim them “ in the 
market-place.” 

The case is the same with the prayer of petition of the 
devout man. He does not think of the “natural” possi- 
bility or impossibility of what he asks for, but only of 
God’s will. He does not doubt that this will can grant 
everything. And he can lift himself, with the faith that 
can move mountains, to the certainty of obtaining all afche 
is spiritually assured of its being the will of God that he 
ask. But he does not presuppose anything inconsistent 
with his accepting natural laws. He is only sure that 
these are, without exception, the instruments of God’s will. 

10. The system of nature is everywhere so arranged 
that the free purposeful activity of personalities can ex- 
hibit itself as a factor in it, not as something contrary to it 
or interrupting it. And the capacity of men to change by 
their action the existing conditions of nature, extends from 
the most insignificant to the most important. It shows it- 
self just as much when a man raises a stone from the 


Miracle and Mystery in Revelation 71 


ground for a definite purpose, as when the skill of nations 
pierces mountains and drains seas and rivers. And it in- 
cludes the power of influencing the physical and mental life 
of others by physical and psychical forces. This power is 
very different with different men. It rises, even within our 
sphere of observation, to phenomena which defy all explana- 
tion.’ Where unusual power of will and of conviction is 
present, there exists also almost always a special mastery 
over souls and over the mysterious world of nervous life 
in susceptible human beings.2 Founders of religions are 
not conceivable without such power. Even the sceptical 
view of the world has neither right nor ground to deny 
that such power may exist, in individuals of uncommon 
excitability and vigor of emotional life, to a degree be- 
yond the ordinary, though science is able to give no ex- 
planation. It will then talk of unique gifts and powers, 
and try to investigate their conditions. But the devout 
view of the world, when it notes such powers in connection 
with religious movements, will see in them gifts of God’s 
grace (duvdmes, yapicuata). It will not doubt that God 
can grant them in the degree which corresponds to his 
will to reveal himself. It will never wholly fail to find them 
active where creative religious personalities are \ involved. 
Even to-day there is no lack, under conditions of religious 
excitement, of such astonishing powers, and Roman Catho- 
lic legend is in this respect by no means simple “ fiction.” 
But when they appear in men who are agents of revelation, 
when these cure a variety of diseases by the force of their 

1 Hypnotism, suggestion, dominant personalities. That this is also the 
region of illusion and deceit cannot prevent us from recognizing its indubitable 
phenomena, even though we are often unable to understand them scientifically. 


* That Jesus demanded “faith” as the condition of the exercise of his 
powers points in this direction, 


72 Postulates of the Religious View 


religious personality or penetrate into the inmost life of 
others, faith will see miraculous powers which God has ~ 
given them as witness for his revelation and as an aid in 
their mission.!. And in this region piety will not be able 
to grant that the power of God to lend such gifts can be 
thought of as limited by natural conditions. It rejoices 
to meet traces of divinity more striking and distinct than 
usual. But it will take no interest in conceiving of such 
powers as exempt from the control of natural law. Hence 
it can for its part calmly leave the assumption of the irre- 
ligious view of the world undisputed, that in this region, 
too, laws doubtless exist, even though they escape human 
knowledge.? 

11. Life itself is, at bottom, a riddle and a miracle, and 
the conditions and limits of its evolution and higher devel- 
opment are hidden from science, which passes judgment 
only on the evolution of life under the laws of nature and 
must always assume life itself as already existing. And 
even sceptical science assumes a boundless capacity for 
development in the life of nature (evolution). The reli- 
gious view of the world sees instead boundless capacities 
of progress hidden in God’s creative will. It believes in 
God’s creative power, which can summon from within the 
world new conditions of life, that play their part without 
man’s being able to observe them or to determine their 
limits, and produce new results in the great permanent 
system of the evolution of things under law. For it all 
higher life is a miracle, animals and plants in comparison 

1 Faith must not forget that such powers can also arise from the energy 
of a wicked will, that is, cannot prove by themselves a real revelation of God 
(Deut. 13. Matt. 24). Night side of nature. 


2To a man of the stone age the telephone and electric telegraph would 
doubtless have been unnatural and uncanny mysteries. 


Miracle and Mystery in Revelation 73 


with stones, man in comparison with animals (crveatio con- 
ténua). Hence it ascribes to God the power of realizing 
also ‘what no eye hath seen.” It believes in the resur- 
rection body, in the new heaven and new earth, when 
these are promised it as God’s revealed will. It knows no 
limits or conditions to such activity, such as might exist in 
a world independent of God. For it the world from which 
we get sense experience is neither the whole world nor the 
highest development of things. It understands Lotze’s 
remark, that “poetry is reality; prose sees only a small 
section of an elliptical path,” and Jean Paul’s saying, that 
‘miracles on earth are nature in heaven.” And it can 
base on Darwin’s discoveries flights of thought bolder 
than the miracle-loving fancies of naive faith. But believ- 
ing as it does in a God of wisdom, it has no right to doubt 
that miracle is also the revelation of higher ordinances and 
laws now hidden from us; and that the final explanation 
of the evolution of the world must be, not a violation, 
but a creative development, of the system of things. 
Such considerations will be adapted to appease the 
Christian concerning the nature of the miraculous, in so 
far as this is really involved in the growth of his religion; 
and to give him the assurance that renunciation of his 
scientific conscience is as little demanded of him as is 
a breach with the conviction, inalienably established for 
our civilization, that an honest knowledge of reality has 
inevitably to take into account the law of cause and effect. 
But they have neither the aim of making faith in miracles 
scientifically accessible (it is in its essence renunciation of 
the effort to understand certain phenomena scientifically), 
nor of taking up arms for the historical trustworthiness of 
the miraculous stories of the Bible individually. The 


74 Postulates of the Religious View 


science of history will have to judge these severally by 
its laws of probability. Piety protests only against 
judgment being passed from the point of view of dog- 
matic and sceptical naturalism, instead of from that of 
science. . 

12. Alongside of miracle contra naturam the older apolo- 
getics emphasized prophecy, z.e. knowledge of the future 
contrary to the rules of human knowledge, in order to 
prove from it the divinity of Christian revelation. This 
conception of prophecy (for which the name of “sooth- 
saying” (magic) would be really fitter) was doubtless not 
distinguished among the Jews from the really religious 
conception of prophecy. But it has no essential connection 
with faith in revelation. For the latter sheds, by means 
of impressions of the divine will, light on our judgment 
concerning the divine meaning of the world, — has, 
that is, in itself nothing at all to do with the communica- 
tion of knowledge concerning the external phenomena of 
future things. And he who should try to judge Biblical 
revelation impartially by the standard of such soothsaying 
would, on the one hand, have to overcome psychological 
difficulties of the most serious sort. For from our modern 
point of view the alleged knowledge of something future 
that cannot be understood as inwardly necessary, is 
either an illusion or self-deception (as the case may be); 
or it leads to those night sides of the soul’s life which in 
the interest of religion itself we must carefully distinguish 
from it.. And a divine communication of such things to 
men would be conceivable only under a most superficial 
view of the process of revelation, a view which would drag 
God down into the circle of activities of sense person- - 
alities. And, on the other hand, we should hardly be able 


Miracle and Mystery in Revelation 78 


to deny that the majority of prophecies, when judged from 
this point of view, have not been, and could not be, fulfilled. 
The pictures of the glory of Israel which form the core 
of the prophecies, ¢.g. the royal figure of the Son of 
David, the Parousia in the age of the Apostles, the destruc- 
tion of cities, as Damascus, the conversion of the great 
commercial city of Tyre, and a hundred other important 
elements of the prophetic picture of the future, had not 
come to pass when the “ humble and long-suffering” king 
of the kingdom of God appeared in the Roman Empire 
and incorporated his church for long centuries in the par 
romana. And the fiction of a future fulfilment of such 
features is not only scientifically inconceivable and unten- 
able, but it presupposes something absolutely impossible. 
With the disappearance of the commonwealth of Israel in 
Canaan, with the end of the existence of the adjacent 
nations over which the people of God were to reign and 
with which it was to fight, with the fall of Babylon, 
Nineveh, Tyre, etc., which has come about in a very dif- 
ferent way than the prophets conceived, with the rise of 
Islam, the conditions without which the Old Testament 
picture of the end of things is simply impossible or be- 
comes a pale shadow, have utterly vanished. Moreover, 
for the prophets themselves the visions in which they saw 
judgment and glorification were not parts of prophecy, 
but features of a religious view of the world conceived by 
fancy and presented with free poetic power. On the other 
hand, prophecy in the religious sense of the word is a 
very important element of the apologetics of Christianity. 
The assurance concerning the divine purpose of history 
which follows from revelation must, where the purposes of 
God are not yet realized, become prophecy, ze. religious 


76 Postulates of the Religious View 


certainty as to what God will do, as to what he rejects 
and what in his eyes is capable of life; a certainty which 
can never be explained by intelligent reflection or by em- 
pirical knowledge of worldly things. Where such a prac- 
tical religious certainty is lacking or shows itself mistaken 
as to its religious centre, no true revelation can exist. 
Hence it is a peculiarly profitable task for practical apolo- 
getics to show that the prophetic hope which unfolds itself 
more and more vitally in the Old Testament is logically 
related to that which is spiritually realized in Christianity, 
even where that hope is only presentiment and shadow; 
and how, in the light of Christian history, the mysteries 
and misunderstandings of the Old Testament hope be- 
come spiritual and clear. The thought of the kingdom 
of God and of sonship in God, the hope of the new dis- 
pensation of the Holy Ghost, the belief in the Son of 
David reigning in divine glory, filled by God’s spirit, the 
figure of the suffering servant of God, who is the atone- 
ment for the people, the marvellous prefiguring of the 
fulfilment in the typical figures of the history of Israel, — 
all this argues for the truth of Biblical revelation without 
presupposing in any way in the prophets a kind of knowl- 
edge that contradicts the laws of spiritual life. And what 
was “soothsaying” falls away of itself from this prophecy. 
A proof of revelation that would hold also for unbelievers 
such prophecy can, to be sure, furnish as little as can 
miracle rightly understood. The unbeliever could be 
convinced only by such soothsayings concerning accidental 
things as find no explanation in reason; indeed, hardly 
by these, since he could fall back on the mysteries of mor- 
bid spiritual conditions for which our science has as yet 
found no explanation. At any rate apologetics would be 


Lusprration ri 


unable to adduce such proof from the prophecies of the 
Old Testament as interpreted by science. 


8. Lnspiration 


1. To defend miracles and prophecy in the fashion of the 
older apologetic could be deemed the task of Christianity 
only if faith in the infallibility of the revelation, with which 
our historical religion stands and falls, included also the 
assumption of an inspiration of the books containing the 
revelation in the sense of the older theory. Revelation 
and inspiration, z.e. the being filled with inward religious 
certainty by the spirit of God, are correlative ideas. The 
agent of revelation speaks as such the word of God, in the 
spirit of God. He does not proclaim results of his own 
thinking or of his own sense experience. The revelations 
of God that he “sees” he can of course receive only by 
virtue of his having the spiritual capacity. But by receiv- 
ing them his soul is filled with new life and new certainty 
(inspired). But this actual inspiration can produce only 
such effects as are consistent with the nature of revelation. 
It can, therefore, evoke ‘neither an infallible scientific 
knowledge of the world nor a perfect philosophic theory 
of God, but only rouse the right spiritual comprehension 
of the will of God manifesting itself in the world and 
moulding it into God’s kingdom. Inspiration in the reli- 
gious sense is the being filled with religious certainty, that 
is, illumination and enthusiasm; whereas the supernatural 
communication of infallible knowledge would be an unin- 
telligible miracle inconsistent with religion and revelation. 
The men of God speak as interpreters of God, but not as 
masters of science or as great philosophers or as infallible 
reporters of past events. 


78 Postulates of the Religious View 


2. Where the living word of agents of revelation is trans- 
formed into literature, the character of inspiration will be 
transferred to this, and will distinguish it from all other lit- 
erature, making it authoritative in the sphere of religion 
and the object of the highest reverence. It cannot fail 
that the community will come, more and more, to re- 
gard such books, even in their external form, as the 
infallible word of God, as soon as the living revelation has 
ceased. Thus not only the books of the Bible, but also 
the Vedas, Avesta, Tripitaka, Kings, and Koran, have won 
in their several sects the position of infallible books of 
miraculous origin. But religious books cannot possibly 
be inspired in another sense than the living agents of reve- 
lation themselves. Itis, of course, true that men of God, 
in communicating in writing what they have learned from 
God, are upborne more exclusively by the power of their 
higher life than in moments of ordinary intercourse with 
others, or in communications of minor importance. Their 
writing will be “inspired” in the same sense in which 
their speech is inspired in hours of official activity, of sol- 
emn bearing of testimony. But no more so. Belief in 
revelation can compel or justify no one in ascribing to the 
agents of revelation when writing capacities which it has 
no claim to assume in them when preaching. Their writ- 
ings will be primarily only monuments and documents of 
revelation and its history, not the revelation itself; and 
the truth of a revealed religion cannot possibly be proved 
from the inspiration of its sacred writings, but must be 
believed before this inspiration can be granted. Every 
religion, of course, holds its sacred books to be “inspired.” 
And the Indian religions, like Islam, emphasize this char- 
acteristic of their canon much more vigorously than does 


L[uspiration 79 


Christianity. To inspire the adherents of another religion, 
or the irreligious, by the method of scientific proof, with a 
really irresistible conviction that the Christian documents, 
in distinction from others, are “really” inspired, is an 
undertaking which, in the present state of the question, an 
expert would hardly undertake. For the believing Chris- 
tian it will doubtless be edifying and strengthening to 
think of the venerable age of these sacred books, of the 
stream of blessings that has proceeded from them, of the 
lofty moral purity and beauty that speak in them and guar- 
antee the sincerity of their authors, of the wonderful history 
to which they bear witness, of their preservation through all 
the dangers of the times, of the content of truth in the 
prophecies, and of a hundred other things. But for the 
non-Christian this would not beget even that valueless 
thing, a fides historica. When he meets the miraculous in 
these books, the memory of other traditions of antiquity 
will inspire doubt in him. If he cannot help seeing in 
them much that is grand and beautiful, parallels will occur 
to him from other spheres. Our evangelical doctrine 
rightly lays every weight on the ¢estimonium Sp. S. inter- 
num by which Holy Scripture produces its own belief 
(avtomatos); that is, it realizes that these books can be 
sacred books only for him who is religiously conquered 
and won by the God who speaks in them to man. But 
this is simply surrendering the old proof of revelation from 
the character of its documents (Lessing). 

3. The devout man can never come into a position 
that is inconsistent with the claims of true science and 
culture through his faith in the inspiration (to him self-evi- 
dent) of the sacred books of his religion. For this faith 
demands, from the point of view of its origin and its 


80 Postulates of the Religious View 


content, neither the recognition of the infallible authority 
of these books in any sphere of science or culture, nor is 
it inconsistent with an unprejudiced historical examination 
of their literary form and of what is narrated in them. 
It demands only that they be looked on as the decisive docu- 
ments for that revelation of God that gives our religion its 
character and its significance. For this definitively religious 
verdict they are the canon. And even “unbelieving” 
science can raise no objections to this view of the sacred 
writings. On the other hand, the opinion that such 
sacred books must be considered as the miraculously given 
norm for all the knowledge contained in them concerning 
God and the world, would not only stand, as a fact, in the 
sharpest contradiction with reality, but would, merely as 
opinion, challenge the irreconcilable hostility of all genu- 
ine and conscientious science. A science which, from re- 
ligious reverence, let itself be restrained from examining 
the status of a literature, or which renounced investigation 
and its independent judgment wherever judgments have 
been once pronounced by men of a distant past in any 
sphere of knowledge of nature or history, would no longer 
be a science in which a conscientious man of our age 
could feel himself intellectually justified in taking part. 
But the interests of the piety that accepts a revelation 
demand nothing of the sort, and, above all, such a theory 
of inspiration is nowhere favored by the self-witness of the 
Biblical writers. Not only did the writers of the Old Cove- 
nant nowhere think of a miraculous divine origin of their 
writings, but also Jesus’ apostles speak frankly of their 
own views and of facts concerning which their memory is 
uncertain (1 Cor. 1, 15; 7, 25). They are writing for the 
needs of the moment, for practical reasons, and have the 


Luspiration 81 


unimportant interests of their own persons in their eye 
(2 Tim. 4, 13). And the historical writings of the New 
Testament nowhere appeal to a divinely effected infallibility, 
but, like all honest history, to the careful use of accessible 
sources (Luke 1, 1 ff.). The conception of the inspiration 
of the books of the Bible held by the early church is the 
child of an age as yet untouched by science in our sense 
of the word; an age that had the record of the bygone 
revelation only in its literature and that felt the need of 
obtaining for the allegorical interpretation which was to 
read new thoughts into the old letter a foundation dictated 
by God himself. It is with right now abandoned in sound 
Christian theology. Piety can maintain the infallibility of 
the records of revelation only by granting to science the 
right, on its side, to make these records, as historical docu- 
ments, the subject of a logical and unprejudiced criticism. 
They are for piety of incomparable sanctity, the perma- 
nent, unique, and definitive record of the revelation of God 
fulfilled in Christ, being born of the spirit which this reve- 
lation has brought into the world. But they are not a 
supernaturally wrought “miracle,” but a literature born of 
religious history. 


PART III: THE REASONABLENESS OF THE 
RELIGIOUS VIEW OF THE WORLD 


9. The Necessity of Faith (Duty of Belief) 


1. Tue fact of religion is, of course, in itself no scien- 
tific proof of the objective truth of the religious view of the 
world. Even if it is inseparably connected with the men- 
tal life of man, it might be simply one of the limitations 
attaching to finite personality and its knowledge, and its 
presuppositions might be subjective illusions. The devout. 
man has, it is true, in his piety itself the assurance that it is 
not so, and this assurance is for him inferior in strength to 
no sensuous or scientific certainty. But he feels precisely in 
this personal religious assurance of his, that a “ scientific ” 
proof, based on non-religious foundations, of the reality of 
the world of faith could necessarily never be successful. 
The revelation of God that has mastered his conscience, 
the impression of the person of Jesus on his heart, are in 
fact the basis of his conviction, not any considerations of 
the reason. He must be conscious of the limitations of 
_ the competency of apologetics. He will not fail to see 
that a great part of the peculiar power and joy of religion 
depends on the fact that a scientific proof of its truth is 
impossible. Were it not so, the man of normal capacity, 
even without the participation of the conscience and the 
will, could and must be made “pious” just as well as 
taught to count. Scientific knowledge of the real exist- 
ence of God would make impiety simple madness (Nagel). 

82 


The Necessity of Faith 83 


But he can assert that what he has in his piety can be 
replaced by no other spiritual possession of humanity ; 
that is, that with the disappearance of “faith” an essential 
part of human nobility would be lost, and that a compre- 
hension of the world and of our own life is impossible with- 
out the religious presupposition. 

2. Faith’s conception of the world can never be re- 
placed or rendered superfluous by any progress of science 
or of culture. The thought is simply impossible that 
knowledge could ever take the place of faith in any 
higher spiritual development. For only faith makes pos- 
sible a consistent comprehension of the world, one in which 
there is place for a true estimate of our own personal 
being, a being qualitatively different from nature. Mere 
theoretic knowledge has not, in itself, either the right 
or the wish to go beyond the causal connection of indi- 
vidual things in the empirical world. If science does 
this, however, and cherishes the confidence that the 
world must be in itself a unit and correspond to the judg- 
ments of worth of our practical reason, it speaks, whether 
it knows it or not, on the ground of an act of faith. So all 
effective philosophy is based, at bottom, on faith, not on 
knowledge. What has been, from Plato down to Fichte 
and Hegel, called “knowledge” is after all nothing else 
than a powerful conviction, born of the spiritual life of man, 
which is elevated to a “scientific” knowledge. Nay, 
pnandedge itself does not become a consistent self-assured 

“science” until it is controlled by convictions which be- 
long, not to it, but to faith. The unity and the structure 
of things can never be “known” in the sense in which 
science uses the word. Deduction is excluded, since it 
would assume the very thing that is to be proved. In- 


84 The Reasonableness of the Keligious View 


duction, in view of the spatial and temporal limitations 
of the sense experience possible to us, leads no farther 
than to the certainty of the causal connection between a 
considerable number of phenomena and the probability 
that it is universal. Only because our own reason de- 
mands the unity of things, that is, only on the ground of 
a belief that rests on postulates of our inner life, do we 
assume as self-evident facts the “unity” of things and 
the law of cause and effect. Hence existing science 
would be impossible if all cognition but that of “ knowl- 
edge” were renounced. A scepticism which denies the 
possibility of a purely subjective apprehension, would not 
in itself be more irrational than religious scepticism, 
Ourselves, however, together with the known facts of our 
spiritual life, we simply cannot understand without faith. 
For in the system of nature there is place neither for 
freedom nor for rational self-consciousness. 

3, And with the loss of faith the most effective power 
for morality would also be lost. A law of duty can be 
deduced from reason and from the needs of society; for 
instance, from the point of view of the progress of man- 
kind or of the common weal. But the inner compulsion 
to obey it, even when its demands permanently contradict 
clearly recognized selfish interests, would prove very 
dubious apart from belief in the world of freedom and the 
good. Worldly shrewdness or mere legality, at best a dull 
and unsatisfying fulfilment of duty (justitia civilis, obedi- 
ence to the state), would take the place of really moral 
conduct. Non-religious ethics lives by virtue of that re- 
ligious view of the world which it denies. It is like the 
flower severed from its stalk, which goes on blooming for 
a while. Noble-minded disciples of naturalism are “‘para- 


Lhe Necessity of Faith 85. 


sites” of a- believing society and would die out without 
it (Balfour). We must believe, in order to lead a truly 
moral life (Leibnitz, Nagel). Ages of national progress 
are always ages of faith (Goethe). It is true that effort 
for the good of all could be deduced even from the 
impulse to seek one’s own happiness (Bentham, Mill, 
Utilitarianism); for social life would be impossible with- 
out some recognition of such ends, and would have to 
give way to the mere struggle for existence. We can 
grant to the modern non-religious ethical systems that, 
inasmuch as a personal satisfaction is possible only 
through an harmonious attitude to the social environment 
and the prosperity of the community, an intelligent ego- 
ism (eudzmonism) involves far-reaching motives for con- 
duct looking to the prosperity of others (altruism); and 
also that the struggle for real happiness (as the Epicureans 
recognized) can be crowned with success, in the last 
analysis, only by the controlling of the sensual impulses 
by the reason. But such considerations have no force 
when passion impels in the other direction. For mere 
“reflections” cannot stand against the living force of the 
will (Rom. 7). The morality which would be left would 
no longer be morality as the Christian understands it, 
but calculation, lacking perfect devotion, enthusiasm and 
love, lacking sanctification, self-conquest. Without the 
belief in a divine goal, realized by omnipotence for the 
weal of all and of absolute validity, ethics would not beget 
the power to sacrifice our own love of pleasure or the 
interests of our collective personalities, when necessary, 
to the common weal. The necessity of self-sacrifice, in 
cases of difficult moral decision, will never be roused as 
a practical conviction by the mere consideration of the 


86 The Reasonableness of the Religious View 


advantage to human society. That takes place only when 
special impulses, inseparably bound up with the life of the 
individual (like love of family, of country, community of 
interests), are involved; that is, only for special spheres 
and tasks. Only faith in the omnipotent might of the 
good and in the absolute character of moral duty can 
control our total conduct in this direction. For the unbe- 
liever, man in his decisions must necessarily be, in the 
last analysis, only a special case under natural law. 

Hence the majority of philosophers have always felt 
that true morality was inseparably bound up with “ faith,” 
even though they put “metaphysical” faith in the place 
of religious (v. Hartmann). Where egoism Is the final 
motive, there is no more real “morality” than in the 
slavish obedience to authority begotten by reward and 
punishment. Without faith, even Nietzsche’s anti-Christian 
ethics is unintelligible. For the conviction that the strong 
will, as the one capable of higher development, is in itself 
the good will, and that hence the strong will has the right 
and the duty to impose itself as master on the weak will 
(Herrenmoral, Ubermenschen), while for the weak will the 
task is set to surrender and to “ fit itself in bounds,” rests, 
after all, also on a faith for which natural science offers, 
to be sure, some presumptions, but which can be shown 
to be as little scientific as the Christian. Real naturalism 
can look on the phenomenon of morality only as an 
individual and transitory one of little significance, by 
which nature, under certain conditions, promotes the 
“preservation of the species,” as she does, under other 
conditions, by instinct or by the love of pleasure. It 
can allege no valid reason why ethical motives, as such, 
should stand higher than physical ones, or why they 


Lhe Necessity of Faith 87 


should claim absolute validity (Balfour). As “a brief 
episode in the life of an insignificant planet,” human 
morality would lose utterly the character of something 
with an absolute value. 

4. For this loss esthetic satisfaction in nature and art 
could never compensate.! Aésthetic culture can, to be 
sure, soften rudeness of manners and lend an already 
existing morality the charm of beauty. But it cannot. 
offer a guarantee against the worst moral degeneration. 
Hardness and corruption of heart do not yield to zesthetic 
impressions, for these do not work upon the will directly. 
Ages like that of the Renaissance have been conspicuous 
for esthetic creation and enjoyment; men like Nero and 
the Borgias have been virtuosos of zesthetic Feelin gee 
is true that real artistic creation thrives only on the soil 
of moral greatness, while one-sided esthetic enjoyment 
has a morally enervating effect and cannot steel the 
will. Rome’s virile vigor was unstrung by the artificial 
pursuit of Greek art. And never yet has a high develop- 
ment of art brought nations permanently to a higher moral 
development or kept them from decay. The indulgence. 
of elevated feelings unconnected with the moral will is, in 
and for itself, enervating. Hatred of the “coarse” is not 
hatred of the “bad.” The highest moral effects of art 
rest on its religious content, e.g. in tragedy. And for the 
really elevating effects of genuine art, only a relatively 
small number of (aristocratic) natures are ever receptive. 
To point to zsthetic culture is to mock at the poor and 
miserable, to whom art-loving Hellas was indifferent. 
And for the great mass pleasure in art means in reality 


1“ Fe who has science and art has religion” (Goethe). Cf. Strauss, Der 
alte und der neue Glaube. 


88 The Reasonableness of the Religious View 


an hypocritical imitation, accompanied by enxuut, of the 
fashionable taste for art of the few, the intellectual aristo- 
crats. The search for zsthetic substitutes and the deifica- 
tion of heroes of art show the feeling of emptiness which 
the disappearance of religion leaves behind. It can evoke 
only a feeling of deep pity when men great in art are put, 
with all the tricks of deliberate rhetoric, in the place 
which belongs to those of revelation (Goethe, Wagner) ; 
or when the effort is made to conceal the dearth of 
individual religious feeling behind enthusiasm for Bach’s 
oratorios or for artistic liturgies. 

5. Without religion, therefore, man would have to 
renounce the attempt to understand the world as a unit 
and to maintain himself in the mechanism of the world 
as a permanent end. He would lose enthusiasm, assur- 
ance of victory, and the consciousness of the permanent 
success of his moral toil, and at most would be able to 
console himself for the misery of the loss by the adorn- 
ments of science and art, if he happened to be one of the 
fortunate ones. For the common mob, whom the culti- 
vated man could at most pity, the brutal demand for 
enjoyment and power would probably take the place of 
religion. We should not let ourselves be lulled into 
security by false comparisons with earlier times. The 
proletariat of the ancient world consisted of slaves, who 
could only try to break their chains by fierce revolt that 
had no prospect of success, not of sharers of political 
power. And they were believing. However childish and 
superstitious their religion was, it forbade the attempt at 
revolt against the general order of things. The ancient 
world has known no unbelieving masses of poor having a 
share of civil rights. Hence no one can seriously doubt that 


The Necessity of Faith 89 


with religion a most valuable element would vanish from 
the life of mankind. But must not the educated man of 
our time, if he is a conscientious and honest man, abandon 
religion, nevertheless, even though he counts “the devout 
and childlike” happy? On the contrary, the right under- 
standing of what knowledge and faith are proves the duty 
of faith. 

6. Only those things that are, mediately or immediately, 
accessible to sense perception are objects of knowledge, 
in the scientific sense of the word. To understand by the 
laws of thought reality, as perceived by the senses or 
known from the stored-up experience of others, is knowl- 
edge. Hence nature as understood by mathematics, his- 
tory as understood by philosophy, constitute the sphere 
of science. An absolutely certain knowledge exists only 
in mathematics and logic. For here it is a question of 
conditions that are not imposed from without, but are set 
by the thinking mind itself, and therefore can, on analysis, 
always be understood by it. Physical science offers a 
high degree of certainty, insomuch as nature can be made 
the object of continually repeated experiment. But to all 
human traditions only probability, possibility, and failure 
of knowledge attach, as soon as what has once been is no 
longer present to us immediately in its effects, in docu- 
ments or results. In the sphere of knowledge doubt is a 
conscientious duty whenever it is not irrational, But faith 
is the letting our view of the world be determined by the 
fact that we, as rational and free personalities, bear a rela- 
tion to the world as a whole, live in a world of freedom 
that is hidden from the senses, and know ourselves in- 
cluded in a teleological scheme of things that does not 
exist for logic and mathematics (judgments of worth). 


90 The Reasonableness of the Religious View 


In faith there are no degrees of certainty. Doubt is felt 
as a moral defect (misfortune or guilt). For it springs 
from lack of receptivity for the value of the moral world. 
Where the same objects come under consideration for faith 
and for knowledge, they are for science a part of history 
or of natural science, which know no such thing as faith; 
for faith they are revelations of God to the inner life 
of man, that is, are judged, not from the point of view of 
science, but by their supersensual worth and meaning. 
Hence to renounce faith is not to give up an uncertain 
knowledge in favor of a certain and clear one, but to reject 
all possibility of conviction in a sphere where we cannot 
know. It means the resolve to refuse to let oneself be 
determined, in one’s view of the world and life, by the 
postulates of one’s own rational moral life, because these 
postulates do not admit of scientific proof. If this were 
a question only of the renunciation of a consistent theo- 
retic view of the world, we could not speak of such a 
renunciation being contrary to duty. For only short- 
sightedness and lack of clearness can doubt, that if faith 
be really taken away our knowledge must be limited to 
the subjective perception of a narrow circle of individual 
phenomena, and all comprehension of the riddle of the 
world and life be regarded as impossible. The phenom- 
enal world exists only for consciousness. And all science 
presupposes it as a datum. And in fact our knowledge 
itself never comes about without the help of our self- 
postulating personality. ‘It is at bottom an act of the 
will, to accept knowledge as valid” (Lessing). ‘The 
will holds the primacy in self-consciousness ” (Schopen- 
hauer). “The whole man makes the choice” (Nagel). 
But it is not our duty to understand the world as a 


The Necessity of fatrth gI 


whole and the riddle of life. And the fact that our 
knowledge is always determined somehow by the will 
might be a defect in us which we ought to counteract 
and which could perhaps be eliminated in more highly 
developed stages of humanity. But we dare not renounce . 
faith, because in doing so we should have to renounce also 
our personal dignity, our moral nobility, and the absolute- 
ness of duty. Schiller is right when he says in Kant’s 
spirit: “Man is robbed of all worth when he ceases to 
believe in these three things.” We must believe in order 
to retain our human dignity, which no honorable man dare 
renounce. | 

7. That faith carries with it necessarily a subjective 
element, that it cannot come about without active partici- 
pation of the will, and is not accessible to scientific proof, 
cannot place it on a lower plane than knowledge. On 
the contrary, we can see that the most valuable thing in 
us, the sole unlimited good (Kant), the free and righteous 
will, would be impossible if the facts of faith could impose 
themselves on the senses and the reason in the fashion of 
facts of knowledge. For then we should have only the 
choice between a mad revolt against the awful majesty 
of the good, or the doing of it by an inevitable physical 
necessity. Egoism would become the final motive in man 
as in brutes. We should be children or else perfectly made 
machines (Nagel). We are to give our hearts to God, 
not sell them to him. True morality is possible just be- 
cause the world of the good is accessible only to faith, 
not to knowledge. The incognito of Christ is a grace 
(Nagel). Pascal has laid emphasis on the fact that it is 
precisely the “improbabilities”’ inseparable from faith’s 
view of the world, that constitute the conditions of free- 


92 Lhe Reasonableness of the Religious View 


dom for morality. This is the small element of truth in 
the credo quia absurdum. Divine truths have value for 
the inner life only because they must reach the intellect 
through the heart. , 


10. Materialism and Pessimism 


1. Materialism is the attempt to comprehend the world 
logically without faith.1 Disregarding Kant’s theory of 
knowledge and ignoring the fact that for our actual experi-= 
ence there are only efficient forces, not atoms that possess 
and beget forces, it attempts, in the first place, to sternly 
exclude the idea of purpose, and to explain the world as 
the necessary result of the mechanical working of the law 
of causality. Darwin’s theory of evolution by the strug- 
gle for existence and by selection, has just now given this 
attempt greater confidence and a more favorable reception 
on the part of the general public than before; since it ex- 
plains what used to seem created for a purpose by the 
fact that the relatively better equipped have, for this reason, 
the greater probability of persistence and propagation, and 
that by heredity the special characteristics are confirmed 
to which this advantage was due. In the second place, 
it tries to deduce from atoms (ze. the smallest subdivi- 
sions of matter equipped with force), and from their 
combination and the chemical and physical processes 
resulting therefrom, all the phenomena of the world, in- 
cluding the so-called spiritual ones, without a spiritual 
cause; and exults in disburdening the life of the individual 
soul from considerations of a spiritual world of aims and 
duties (Lucretius). If thoughts are secretions of the 


1 Democritus, Empedocles, the Epicureans (Lucretius), Offray de la Mettrie, 
Holbach, Moleschott, Biichner, Vogt. Cf. Du Bois-Reymond, Lange. 


Materialism and Pessimism 93 


brain, and the determination of conscience by “a world 
lying behind the visible one” is recognized as an illusion, 
then “the pale cast of thought” ceases to disfigure the 
“native hue of resolution” (Hamle?), 

2. This view of the world is doubtless right for a wide 
region, and the obstinate persistence in the naive old ideal- 
ism is a poor, because deceitful, friend of religion. The 
older “imponderables” have, like “vital force,” been 
transformed into manifestations of material forces gov: 
erned by law. And physical science owes its great suc- 
cess primarily to the consistency with which it has re- 
jected all inquiry about ends, and recognized only causes 
and effects in a material world under law. But as a view 
that claims to understand the world as a whole, material- 
ism is simply lack of thought. Voltaire wrote: “One 
must have lost all common sense to suppose that the mere 
movement of matter is adequate to produce feeling and 
thinking beings.” So Pascal: ‘There is nothing so un- 
intelligible as the assertion that matter knows itself.” It 
is the fundamental error of so many half-educated men to 
elevate the idea of evolution (that can rightfully be ap- 
plied as a heuristic principle to all empirical investiga- 
tions) under the name of “evolutionism,” into a principle 
under which to view the world, whether it be done in ma- 
terialistic or idealistic fashion (Reischle). Such evolu- 
tionism is at any rate the direct opposite of Christianity, 
which is entirely compatible with the idea of evolution if 
properly treated. 

Aside from the fact that an atom endowed with forces 
is as much a mystery as the world with all its phenomena, 
_ the fact of consciousness in the world of higher animal life 
is utterly unintelligible from the standpoint of materialism. 


94 The Reasonableness of the Religious View 


And this is unaffected by the fact that, in the lowest stages 
of animal existence, a communal life can be seen where 
a whole is made up of organisms which have no individual 
consciousnesses and yet can exist if removed from the 
whole. For even here the fact of individual feeling re- 
mains. It is a question of associations which, it is true, 
mark the transition from plant life, but are still asso- 
ciations of feeling beings. And the more highly de- 
veloped life is, the more completely do such conditions 
recede behind the clearer and clearer consciousness of 
the individuals. Least of all can the personal moral 
and spiritual consciousness of man be explained as sim- 
ply the result of mechanical processes. Says Lange: 
“ Between man as object of empirical investigation and 
man knowing himself as subject, an eternal gulf is fixed.” 
The motion of what does not feel cannot produce feeling. 
So Lange: “The atomic theory is no more able to-day 
than in Democritus’ time to explain even the simplest 
feeling of sound, light, warmth, or taste.” So Lotze: 
“Between the highest combination of the inorganic ele- 
ments which we know and the first dawn of feeling, the 
gulf always remains the same.” The feeling subject is 
never explained by mechanical processes, however com- 
plex. The unity of consciousness can never be the result 
of the working together of many parts. An organism 
can be understood from the materialistic point of view, but 
not a subject. The bridge between organic and inorganic 
life, between natural phenomena and spiritual activities, 
can never be built on materialistic lines. The material 
atom as “substance” is by no means the main thing, nor 
is force merely subsidiary, the “ accident.” What we 
actually know by experience are invariably only forces. 


Materialism and Pessimism 95 


Manifestations of force can, however, proceed only from 
what is living. And where we now find inorganic exist- 
ence, the organic (plant and animal life) often appears to 
have been the earlier form. Hence, in order to explain 
the world, materialism must regard as illusion, or else 
leave unexplained, the very thing that is the sole sure con- 
tent of our immediate and certain knowledge. Whoever 
does not think, with Berkeley and Lotze, of “non-physical” 
atoms, that is, does not deny materialism at its centre, 
cannot make atoms explain the world of which we are a 
part. Nay, even the external processes by which life pro- 
duces an organism can be referred to the accidental colli- 
sion of independent groups of atoms only by a stupendous 
effort of the fancy. Lotze has rightly pointed out the 
irrationality of a theory which tries to explain from the 
“accidental” aggregation and arrangement of unconscious 
atoms the fact that, in one and the same body and as the 
condition of its existence, the organs which see, seize, 
crush, and digest the necessary food work in unison. 
And an honest survey of actual existence will always 
derive the like impression from such processes as those of 
sight, propagation, etc.; true though it doubtless is, that the 
existing perfection of physical functions is the result of a 
long evolution under very complex conditions, and that 
what the layman simply admires (e.g. the human eye) 
shows to the investigation of science failures of adaptation 
that at least exclude the idea that the thing, as it exists 
now, is the perfect expression of an absolute act of omnt- 
science unhampered by conditions. The serious study of 
nature rejects materialism as mere dogma.! It is not with- 

1 Copernicus, Newton, Kepler, Haller, Herschel, Pascal, Cuvier. So Lie- 


big: “Man as a thinking being is not the product of his senses, but the 
achievements of his senses are products of the intelligent will in man.” 


—— 


96 The Reasonableness of the Religious View 


out interest to note how the materialistic conception of the 
world begets in more profound minds the inevitable neces- 
sity of supplementing it with religious conceptions which 
do not follow from it at all. In Comte’s Positivism all 
the assumptions are purely materialistic. It knows only a 
view of the world based on the assured knowledge of the 
exact sciences, starting with mathematics and ending with 
biology and sociology. Everything is the physically nec- 
essary result of the complicated system of physical, chem- 
ical, and psychological functions into which the atoms have 
organized themselves. But then “humanity,” as the high- 
est outcome of this process, is to be the object of a cult 
of the future which shall aim at “ keeping alive the true 
idea of humanity and the practice of human love.” And 
without some such ideal to which man can devote him- 
self with his whole heart he will not be able to live. 
Naturalism, however, can explain neither “ humanity” nor 
the “idea of humanity” nor “human love.” It is the 
shadowy reflection of the supersensual world of faith, 
bred by an idealizing fancy (A. Lange); just as, at bottom, 
materialism itself is to be referred, not to science, but to a 
‘‘religious’’ impulse turned to polemic use. 

3. Pessimism is no conscious enemy of religion. Nay, 
in Buddhism it has even taken the form of religion; and 
its modern representatives, however decidedly they may 
aim to transcend Christianity, suggest nevertheless some- 
thing of the herald of a religion of the future in the 
fashion of their doctrine. This is true even of Schopen- 
hauer, and still more so of writers like E. von Hartmann 
or Taubert. They love to contrast the pessimistic mood 
with the optimistic, as the really ‘“‘religious” one, because 
it makes satisfaction in the phenomenal world impossible 


Materialism and Pessimism 97 


(“ euthanasia of morality’’). But if logically carried out, 
pessimism in fact excludes religion. If existence, includ- 
ing the spiritual and moral life, deserves to be negatived, 
then the world reveals to us as its ultimate secret a power 
on which we dare not be inwardly absolutely dependent, 
which cannot be the object of religion (God), and which is 
utterly unable to guarantee us our spiritual and moral per- 
sonality in the world. That mood of pity at the sight of 
an All-One miserably tied to “existence” of which is born 
the resolve, by negation of the “will to live,” to lead this 
One to the goal of liberation from the misery of existence, 
is in reality the complete opposite of the religious feeling 
that yearns, by surrender to the supersensual, to preserve to 
the spiritual personality its right to permanence in the phe- 
nomenal world. And this is true even where pessimism 
makes an ephemeral alliance with practical optimism, as in 
v. Hartmann. It may in that case transcend the doctrine 
of the wretchedness of existence and Schopenhauer’s quiet- 
ism, by setting as the task of the pessimist, individually 
and collectively (a task having for its object the universal 
and definitive negation of life), the promoting with might and 
main the spiritual progress of mankind, by which alone the 
really decisive last step becomes possible. Hence pes- 
simism may recognize it as a duty to secure to humanity 
the largest possible amount of wisdom, power, and devel- 
opment, and may see in misery itself the source of the 
impulse to development, and in the illusion of happiness 
a spur to progress. It may take up with Buddhistic 
thought in a weakened and modernized form, or look for 
a new religion of monistic pessimism. But as a view 
of the world it is at root “irreligious” and could not 
fail to destroy religious life. For it makes impossible 
H 


98 The Reasonableness of the Religious View 


that relation to God in which lies the essence of all 
~ religion. 

4. Pessimism, in so far as it is a judgment on a definite 
part of the evolution of the world and our own life, is, to be 
sure, both irrefutable and inseparably bound up with the 
fundamental mood of every higher religion. Our inborn 
instinct toward perfection and happiness demands itsan 
view of our own moral defects and the ills of our life on 
earth. The rejection of the “world,” of the “flesh,” and 
of our own goodness, as well as the dissatisfaction in 
perishable things, are the primary elements of Christianity. 
Pessimism can be the ally of Christianity, in so far as it 
tears off the mask of hypocritical satisfaction from the 
fleshly and unbelieving view of the world. And like John 
and Paul, like Augustine and Pascal and Innocent III, 
so Rousseau and Kant are pessimists in thissense. In the 
presence of the external world as it exists at present, 
optimism is certainly irreligious, and a view of the world 
based on it (Wolff, Leibnitz, Paulsen) shallow. The 
attempt to justify from the point of view of “ happiness ” 
an optimistic verdict on empirical life (¢.g. Jurgen Bona 
Meyer) can never attain its goal, because “happiness ”’ is 
purely subjective ; because every satisfaction is felt much 
less vividly than the corresponding pain and often is 
nothing more than the cessation of discomfort ; because the 
progress of civilization manifestly increases the dispropor- 
tion between pleasure and pain by necessarily increasing the 
susceptibility to pain and the dissatisfaction at the sight of 
the greater “happiness” of others; and because the existence 
of the “happy,” even if these were in the majority, is no 
consolation to the “unhappy.” An unprejudiced glance 
into prisons, hospitals, madhouses, — into the misery of 


Materialism and Pessimism 99 


innocent and guilty want in its thousand forms, —is suffi- 
cient to disprove this shallow optimism. And the impulse to 
preserve life does not witness to any excess of pleasure, for 
it is partly innate instinct, partly fear of vague possible ills. 

5. Apologetics rejects pessimism, not because its verdict 
on the amount of earthly happiness can be disproved, but 
because the gauging the value of life by the amount of pleas- 
urable feeling is intrinsically false and immoral. Not in 
conditions and experiences, but in achievements and aims, 
not from life’s physical, but from its moral, content, must 
personality learn the significance of its life. Pleasure, as 
such, is no standard at all by which to gauge the worth of 
life. It can only be distinguished in degree, not in kind. 
Measured by it, the life of a savage would be preferable to 
that of a Socrates, and the life of many brutes more valu- 
able in content than human life. Life, and with it the world 
in its significance for us, —and that is the sole question,!— 
gets its real significance from the inherent possibility it 
offers for the development and activities of the moral 
personality. The true estimate of conscience and person- 
ality makes pessimism untenable. The world is good as 
soon as it becomes for us material for morality. For 
one who surrenders himself to the world and seeks 
satisfaction in it, it is evil, even if it offers a distinct 
excess of pleasure. And not only by the satisfactory 
solution of the moral problem, but merely by making us 
capable of addressing ourselves to it with confidence of 
success, the world becomes for us good. Hence even 
the “pleasure” of a good conscience is by no means the 


1 The measure of the value which the world and life have for the unreason- 
ing brute is inaccessible to us, and the task can never be set man to judge of 
this worth. 


100 Lhe Reasonableness of the Religious View 


decisive thing. The perception of the duty of playing 
a réle by thought and action in the realm of truth and 
morals, and the becoming receptive to beauty, order, and 
right, must in themselves make life seem valuable to 
man. He who seeks first the kingdom of God is an opti- 
mist and knows that pain and pleasure serve for his good 
(Rom. 8, 28. Matt. 6, 33). And religion will guarantee him, 
not sense satisfaction, but the permanence and the goal 
of his moral personality in the world. It does not pre- 
suppose at all that the world, as phenomenon, is arranged 
for the sense satisfaction of the individual. On the con- 
trary, in that case the world would not rouse the sense of 
the need of religious satisfaction. Just because the world 
offers an unfavorable balance in the pleasure and pain. 
account, it keeps the highest good from harm (Rauwenhoff). 
The world’s failure to satisfy is the last bond that still 
binds the irreligious man to God (Pascal). Religion 
demands only that the world include the moral ends of 
man, and that it be adapted to waken religion in him. 
Then it must pronounce the world “good.” Pessimism 
is a valuable ally of religion inasmuch as it uncovers the 
hypocrisy of satisfaction in the world without religion. 
But, like materialism, it judges the world by standards 
of the phenomenal life of sense, without regard to its 
spiritual and moral quality and without the sense of the 
absolute worth of the morally good. But it judges, not on 
the basis of an alleged science, but on the basis of moods 
and feelings. Optimism is a moral duty. 


11. The Proofs for the Existence of God 


1. The theology of the present has, with right, grown. 
accustomed to look with strong misgiving on the tradi- 


The Proofs for the Existence of God toi 


tional arguments for the existence of God. The assurance 
of Christian faith rests in fact on the impression of the 
personality of Jesus and of the life proceeding from it, 
not on the arguments of reason for the existence of God. 
It has God because it has Jesus. And in general, God 
cannot be an object of knowledge, but only of faith, and 
hence cannot be proved to every thinking man in the 
fashion of the exact sciences. This must, from the start, 
seem to exclude the possibility of arriving at a certainty 
of God’s existence by the mere consideration of the exist- 
ence or the adaptation to purpose of the world, apart from 
the “spiritual” processes in human personality, that is, 
on the basis of a scientific knowledge of the world. Every 
proof of the existence of God that argues from effect to 
cause is necessarily defective, since we do not know the 
totality of results and hence cannot draw a sound induction. 
And a purpose in the world can never be so established 
that its resolution into a result of the law of causality 
would be absolutely impossible. Since it is obvious that 
very much of what seems to us purposed can be explained 
from the coincidence of existing causes, our limited experi- 
ence of the things of the phenomenal world must recog- 
nize such a causal sequence as at least conceivable, even 
when we do not perceive it. Hence such proofs can 
never answer their purpose, except in a very limited way. 
The naive confidence of “natural theology,” of being able 
by exact method to prove God in his distinction from the 
world, that is, as the God of religion, will to-day only draw 
a smile from the man of scientific training. But this by no 
means excludes the fact that even a scientific interest in 
the world leads, in one way or another, to that point of view 
which is reached in the case of religion from the needs 


102 Lhe Reasonableness of the Religious View 


of the spiritual personality. To be certain of the existence 
of God is, at bottom, to recognize the religious view of the 
world as necessary. Now it does not satisfy the demand 
for certainty that the psychological fact of religion can 
be shown to be a universal one, inevitable to mankind at a 
certain stage (Schleiermacher). This is, it is true, of great 
significance for our question. But it could also be inter- 
preted as a mere subjective illusion arising from our wishes 
or from the nature of human consciousness; an illusion dis- 
sipated by reason and from which man must free himself, 
as from other subjective fancies. Piety demands an assur- 
ance of God that is as certain as the fact of our personal 
existence. But from the nature of religion this is possible 
only if the fact of our own personal spiritual life, as one 
qualitatively distinguished from the life of nature, be taken 
into account in the survey of the world, and ourselves 
and the world regarded as one whole.t. He who will do 
neither cannot possibly be scientifically convinced of the 
existence of God. Thoroughgoing scepticism is irrefut- 
able on its own ground. But it condemns itself, inasmuch 
as it draws its conclusions on the assumption of the 
trustworthiness of thought, that is, of the reality of the 
spiritual life in man. 

Hence all the so-called proofs for the existence of God 
can be convincing only if we include the spiritual life of 
man as unique, and do not let ourselves be disconcerted by 
the refusal of scepticism to recognize this factor, but on 
the contrary simply assume reason and conscience as the 


1 “ The Christian view of the world holds, not for man as a limited part of 
nature, but for man as moral person” (Herrmann). And metaphysics as such 
(ontology), being neutral as to the distinction of nature and spirit, must be 
different from any religious view of the world (A. Ritschl). 


The Proofs for the Existence of God 103 


most certain of experiences. But under these limitations 
it is of no small value to the educated believer to make 
clear to himself that it is not merely our moral duty to 
believe in God, but that also, for a real comprehension of 
the world in which we as personalities find ourselves, no 
other than the religious view of the world is adequate; and 
that hence it not only does not contradict science but in 
fact completes and crowns it. Therefore we shall not be 
able to evade the task of examining the real significance 
and bearings of those “proofs of the existence of God” 
which from the first have played an important rdéle in 
Christian apologetics as a continuation of philosophic 
efforts. We begin with the arguments which, as has been 
pointed out above, cannot by themselves attain their pur- 
pose. Their real significance lies essentially in the recog- 
nition of the fact that the religious view of the world is not 
only not in contradiction to the scientific (double truth), 
but furnishes the simplest and most satisfying answer to 
the riddle with which all science necessarily stops. 

2. It is from the world, without regard to the fact of 
the spiritual life in man, that the cosmological and the 
teleological arguments infer the existence of God. Both 
are borrowed from pre-Christian piety and keep recurring 
through the whole history of Christianity.1 The cosmo- 
logical argument proceeds, according to the law of Efficient 
Cause, from conditioned (contingentes) phenomena and 
causes, which always in turn presuppose a cause, to an 
unconditioned final Cause which, being such, cannot be 
phenomenal and must necessarily exist. Since nothing 
can come from nothing, since neither a circle always fur- 
nishing its own conditions nor an infinity of interlocking 


1 The cosmological argument since Aristotle, the teleological since Socrates. 


104 The Reasonableness of the Religious View 


finite causes is conceivable, the conclusion is drawn that 
our thought can stop only with the assumption of an Abso- 
lute. For anything that was not absolute would have to 
be conceived as at some time “non-existent.” The argu- 
ment is in itself irrefutable, but suffers from the defect 
that it tries to extend the law of causality, under which 
we know the phenomenal world, to a region which is 
expressly distinguished qualitatively from our phenomenal | 
world. To our thought, inseparably bound up as it is with 
the law of causality, the right must be denied of making 
assertions concerning a Being that is to be thought of 
as exempt from precisely this law. Concerning the im- 
possibility of a cycle of finite causes and effects we can, 
for the same reason, not pass any decisive judgment. 
But even if the argument as such were recognized, it 
would never lead to what religion calls God, but only to 
a supersensual substance and force that can be just as 
well conceived of as working in the world, as transcen- 
dent and apart from the world. Now the argument can, 
it is true, be improved by pointing out that the actual 
interaction of finite things would be unintelligible apart 
from an ultimate reality common to them, influencing 
them and effective in them; inasmuch as a mere “ law”’ 
could neither exist nor have power over things, and inas- 
much as we cannot conceive how one finite could produce 
change in, and be in turn acted upon by, another finite? 
(Leibnitz, Lotze). But it follows from this that a rational 
consistent comprehension of the phenomenal world is im- 


1 The isolated elements serve to constitute the world only in case they 
’ carry with them their necessary relation to all others and are themselves also 
determined by such relation. The whole is just as much presupposed in each 
individual part, as is each part as a constituting element of the whole (Sieg- 
wart). 


Lhe Proofs for the Existence of God 105 


possible without the assumption of a supersensual ultimate 
reality. But it is neither proven that this ultimate reality 
must be the God of religion, nor that we are competent of 
or pledged to a rational comprehension of the world. A 
simple stopping with the fact of the world unfolding itself 
in accordance with law, such as positivism aims at, cannot 
be characterized as “dereliction of duty,” and a spiritual 
power realizing itself in all phenomenal existence need not 
be God. That the God of religion is the simplest solution 
of the riddle of existence and that the devout man there- 
fore has in his consciousness of God also a satisfactory 
comprehension of the world, is plain (Rom. 1, 20). But 
for the unbeliever God cannot be convincingly proved in 
this way. Metaphysics leads at last only to the limits of 
the phenomenal world and to the conclusion that something 
different from the phenomenal world must be beyond 
these limits. But such notions of limits are necessarily 
negative. They can tell us nothing concerning what lies 
positively at the bottom of the riddle. Religion, on the 
other hand, seeks in its God, not the ‘“‘ supersensual,” the 
“absolute” (primum ens necessarium), but that which is 
turned toward us, with which we can enter into relation. 
The two are connected only by the common idea of the 
“non-phenomenal.” For the idea with which the scientific 
explanation of the world seeks to sum itself up, the name 
of “God” should not be used, as Aristotle does (Kant). 
The actus purus can beget neither worship, nor faith in 
providence. It is more like fate. And absolute being is 
nothing else than the idea of the world (A. Ritschl), The 
Absolute, apart from all quality, is not the God in which 
religion is interested. i 

3. The teleological argument, by comparing the or- 


106 Zhe Reasonableness of the Religious View 


ganization of nature to the products of human skill which 
presuppose an artificer, infers that the wealth of purpose- 
ful phenomena that appears in this world points to a 
supreme purposing reason, in which the conception of 
the world has (logically) preceded the world itself. This 
argument has impressed itself early on simple piety! and 
really leads, if it is accepted, to a God who, as purposing 
personal creator and guide of the world, has significance 
for religion. It would be, of course, by itself invalid if 
the world’s adaption to purpose has to be denied, not 
merely in the sense of pessimism,| but in general as an 
illusion bred by our purposing reason from the results of 
the law of causality; a view of nature which excluding 
the wonder-worker, purpose, has been held from Lucre- 
tius to Strauss. Even if the result of the world were a 
miscarriage from the point of view of “happiness,” the 
purposefulness of the world would remain untouched, if 
judged by other standards. But it would vanish if what 
seems purposeful to us from the point of view of our rea- 
son be explained by heredity and development under the 
influence of that struggle for existence which allows the 
more favorably equipped individuals to maintain and prop- 
agate themselves; if organs and creatures be conceived 
of as formed in the course of uncounted zeons by need and 
by the influence of the external world; so that light has 
produced the eye, the stress of life thought, etc. 

It is obvious that this view is fully justified for a very 
wide range of organic life. The naive teleological view, 
which looked on things and creatures as purposely 
arranged for the physical well-being of man, must be 


1Ps, 19; 97; 104. Job 12,7; 37 ff. Acts14,17. Rom.1,19 ff. Preach- 
ing will always keep it within proper bounds. 
8 y Pp prop 


The Proofs for the Existence of God 107 


definitely abandoned. And in many cases “adaptation to 
purpose”’ can in fact be shown to be the result of evolu- 
tion and struggle. But the attempt from such factors 
to understand the total phenomenal world is nevertheless 
as yet only a vast hypothesis that demands a higher meas- 
ure of faith than all the miracles of religion. Although 
it now starts from below instead of from above, and has 
a scientific, not a speculative, basis, it exhibits at bottom 
the same naive confidence which Hegel showed when he 
thought himself able to explain the world by the logical 
process. At the bottom of both procedures lies the need 
of our reason to reduce by its own laws the variety of ex- 
istence to its simplest terms. Hence we can understand 
how for D. Strauss, for instance, the transition from logi- 
cal idealism to the theory of evolution has been accom- 
plished without the consciousness of a breach. <A 
transition from chemical to physiological, from physiolog- 
ical to psychological, processes is nowhere known. The 
habitable earth is scarcely so old that the thousands of 
years which are recognized by zodlogy and paleontology 
should have no weight in the matter. And these sciences 
assert what is here mainly involved, namely, that living 
creatures and organisms have long existed. The actual 
results of natural selection are vanishingly small and are 
always exposed to the danger of relapse. There is con- 
tinual need of the boldest hypotheses to explain how 
such relapse could be prevented; and in the presence 
of the immense actual interval between the stages of 
animal life, the small results of attempts to breed specific 
variations that shall be permanent seem at present almost 
to challenge mockery; especially since anatomical struc- 
ture is hardly included in such changes at all. That the 


108 Lhe Reasonableness of the Religious View 


various stages that evolution has gone through show us 
first only very primitive forms of life, and only later the 
higher forms of the mammals, is indisputable! But no- 
where have there as yet been found really convincing 
transition stages from primitive forms to higher ones. 
The species that in earlier formations correspond to 
those known to us to-day are, to be sure, more gigantic 
and to our eyes more fantastic than the latter, but in no 
way essentially divergent from them or less perfect. 
They demanded conditions that proved inconsistent with 
the evolution of life on earth. But they are in themselves 
just as perfect as our fauna. And for our purpose the 
question need not be raised whether perchance such 
transitions have been wrought within the higher ranges 
of animal life; whether, for example, man is immediately 
connected with definite species of animals, or whether he 
has existed on earth for three hundred thousand years 
instead of six thousand. A scientific refutation of tele- 
ology could be attempted only if all life on earth could be 
shown to be the result of purposeless causes. 

But even if we were willing to accept the hypothesis, the 
beginnings of life, were these merely the primary green cell, 
would be just as hard to explain without a purposeful cre- 
ative activity as are the present countless species when 
thought of as originally different. The miracle would only 
be pushed farther back. Nothing passes of itself from in- 
organic to organic. And an intelligence unconsciously 

1 In the oldest mountains no fossils have been found as yet. These begin 
in the so-called transition period (including the coal period) in the shape of 
shellfish, crabs, insects, fish, reptiles. The Trias formation is the first to show 
the great amphibia and saurians, the Tertiary period the huge mammals. 


Man and the ape have as yet been shown only in the present stage of the 
earth, which belongs to the diluvial and alluvial age. 


Lhe Proofs for the Existence of God 09 


working toward a purpose (instinct) is, to be sure, intel- 
ligible as a result of creation or of evolution, but not as an 
original presupposition. If we deny the “Logos” in the 
world, there is nothing left for its starting-point but 
“chance.” And to explain order by chance is to proclaim 
the bankruptcy of thought. It is true that science, as 
such, has not the task of finding purpose in the world, 
and of course in the phenomenal world there is no purpose 
without mechanism. But a consistent view of the world 
that excludes the idea of purpose must be regarded as 
inconceivable per se. “Out of a heap of chance letters 
comes no Iliad.” The infinitely complex conditions under 
which nutrition, growth, and propagation of the living be- 
ing proceed and their mutually conditioned union in one 
physical whole, cannot possibly have arisen as the result 
of isolated aimless causes. And “ how is the law of cau- 
sality to produce thought, feeling, and moral will? How 
do a thousand notes result in one tune?” The denial of 
purpose in the world mistakes for spirit what is only the 
apparatus of spirit. 

Yet even this argument does not fully accomplish what 
it is meant to do. In the devout man it doubtless reén- 
forces his piety. But it ceases to be valid if one simply 
falls back on the standpoint of positivist scepticism, 
which refuses to pass judgment where cognition, under the 
law of causality, stops. A retreat can be made to the fact 
that, in reality, what seems purposed is not seldom the 
result of purposeless causes. And the great number of 
empirical failures of adaptation would keep suggesting 
doubt of God, and eventually permit the postulating of a 
“God” that religion cannot acknowledge. The unpreju- 
diced investigation of nature has forever done away with 


110 Zhe Reasonableness of the Religious View 


the fair dream of sentimentality of the “ perfect” world. 
There are so many incomprehensible and yet inevitable 
cruelties and miseries in the world, so many germs perish 
undeveloped, so many glorious “possibilities” go to wreck 
on the iron laws of nature, so many nobler creatures are 
overwhelmed by the brute force of less worthy ones, — 
that “nature,” however certainly it proclaims the glory of 
God as a whole, only too often serves as an accusation 
against him in detail. On the ground of the bare “ view 
of the world,” one might arrive at the assumption of con- 
flicting deities forced into common action by an iron law, 
or at dualism, or at a God who has only partial control of 
the world (Mill), The God that religion demands is not 
found even by the teleological view of the world, certain 
though it is that the undeniable adaptations in the world 
are best and most simply explained by belief in an omni- 
scient Creator, and that the human spirit, in setting aims 
for itself, will always feel itself driven anew to recognize a 
purpose at the basis of the world. 

4. The arguments for the existence of God do not gain 
really convincing power until the fact of the qualitative dis- 
tinction between the processes of nature and the life of the 
human spirit is recognized and taken into account, viz. in 
the facts of thought, of religion, and of morality. The 
ontological argument, based on the fact of thought, and 
carried on from the suggestion of the ancient philosophers 
by the church fathers, by Anselm, and by Descartes in 
various forms, has won new recognition in the school of 
Hegel. Its older forms, at any rate, rest on unmistakably 
false inferences. Augustine starts from the assumption 
that our thought, since it presupposes being and life, but 
is not already involved in them, must be something higher 


Lhe Proofs for the Existence of God 111 


than they. But there is something higher than thought 
itself, namely, the truth (number, wisdom) that all thinkers 
seek, that is, recognize as standing above their thought. 
Hence, either truth itself is the “highest,” that is, God, or 
else whatever is higher still must be God. In any case, 
the existence of God is proved. But Augustine’s conclu- 
sion in this form would carry conviction only if a reality 
was ascribed to ideas in Plato’s sense. The truth which 
reveals itself (in mathematics and in philosophy) as the 
highest law of thought, can also be conceived as a law in- 
volved in our thinking, of which we are conscious only as 
an abstraction from that thought. Anselm maintained 
that our thought of God as the absolute highest demands 
his reality, since a thing that might be non-existent is 
less perfect than what is necessarily existent; that is, 
cannot really be the absolute highest. But existence is 
no mere quality that, added to the idea of a thing, would 
make it perfect. Anselm is right only in saying that God, 
if he exists, can exist only as the absolutely perfect, and 
that by the devout man, to whom the idea of God in gen- 
eral is an assured element of his spiritual life, God will of 
course be regarded as real, not as a mereidea. But the idea 
of the perfect primarily presupposes only that it stands 
higher than other ideas, as Gaunilo has rightly objected. 
Since Kant this objection will hardly be longer disputed. 
Cartesius bases his argument on the assertion that the 
idea of the ens summe perfectum could not originate in our 
minds. The fact of thought is, according to him, the one 
certain fact, even for absolute scepticism. In it is neces- 
sarily implied that the mind attains to the idea of perfect 
being. And this cannot, like other ideas, be a fictitious 
one (merely subjective). For whatever necessarily gives 


112 The Reasonableness of the Religious View 


rise to an idea must hold the content of that idea as reality 
in itself. aught comes of naught. But the “perfect” 
is not in our minds. Hence the idea of it can be begotten 
in us only by the perfect itself. Hence God must exist. 
But the objection will be raised that the idea of the per- 
fect, although positive in itself, could nevertheless be very 
well gained as the necessary result of our own thought, as 
an abstraction from its limitations. An element of truth 
lies, to be sure, in all these arguments, and both Augustine 
and Cartesius not seldom came very near finding it. The 
right to infer the existence of God does not lie, to be sure, 
in the idea of perfect being that exists in us, but in the 
fact of our thought itself, in which we always start from 
the conviction of the truth of the conclusions of the reason, 
that is, assume that being and thought are in the last 
analysis identical. But this would be folly unless an 
Infinite, ruling the world of nature and manifesting itself 
in our reason, really existed. In feeling ourselves com- 
pelled, as reasoning beings, to think of logical laws as 
governing the world, we assume the existence of God as 
the reason that governs the world. Our habit of thinking 
and framing ideals would be an illusion if a “ universal 
reason” corresponding to ours did not rule omnipotent in 
the phenomenal world. Its denial would drive us, even in 
thought, to a logical scepticism. The world is intelligible 
to us only because it is not merely a “world,” but a reve- 
lation of mind! “God is truth in us” (Leibnitz). Who- 
ever surrenders the “rationality” of things must also 
surrender the comprehension of his own rationality. “In 
all finite minds the idea of truth is contained a priort as an 


1 Herder: “The ‘is’ between subject and predicate is my demonstration 
of God.” 


Lhe Proofs for the Existence of God 11 3 


original thought arising from the nature of the mind itself ” 
(Harms). We areas certain of God as of our own thought. 
But, of course, the fact of thought constitutes a con- 
vincing proof of the existence of God only on the 
assumption that the necessity is recognized in general of 
comprehending the world in thought. And this world- 
controlling “rationality” is, of course, by no means the 
God of religion, since it can be conceived of as immanent. 

5. The cosmological argument gains convincing force 
for the devout man from the fact of religion itself, in 
which we, on the one hand, feel ourselves relatively free 
over against the world, and, on the other, feel ourselves 
and the world as absolutely dependent. This fact can be 
shown psychologically to be true of all mankind, as 
Schleiermacher has pointed out. Man cannot make clear 
and interpret to himself the alternate relation of depend- 
ence and freedom which the world forces upon him as 
soon as he has outgrown the first confusions of his childish 
self-consciousness, without becoming inwardly aware of the 
relation in which he, as part of the world, as a “crea- 
ture,” stands, along with the whole world, to what is felt 
by him as the non-phenomenal unity of the contradictions 
of the empirical world. Historically this experience is 
confirmed by the universality of religion. The appeal to 
the consensus gentium as to the existence of a godhead 
is, like Tertullian’s much misunderstood anima per totum 
naturalrter christiana, in fact nothing else than the testim ony 
of experience to the fact that religion is an inevitable phe- 
nomenon in every healthy human soul that is not crippled 
by vice or by excess of culture. The appeal to the “ long- 
ing” of the soul for God, to its unrest until it has found 
him, is rooted in the same cycle of thought. But certain 

I 


114 The Reasonableness of the Religious View 


though it is that such longing is a prophecy of religion, 
it is nevertheless of doubtful wisdom to build on wishes, 
even the apparently most inevitable and best grounded, 
the proof for the reality of the thing wished for. We 
shall do better to stop with the fact of religion as a uni- 
versal human phenomenon. The conviction of something 
above the world, to which we can and must absolutely 
surrender ourselves, is part of a normal human life. The 
existence of God is thus proved practically from our inner 
consciousness of our relativity, instead of by the meta- 
physical argument from the sufficient basis of the world. 
It is true that the scope of this argument can be denied, 
if it is claimed that a satisfactory inner life can be led 
without the religious feeling,’ or if religion is regarded only 
as an illusion, inevitable at certain stages of human de- 
velopment, but not the less baseless on that account. The 
consensus gentium, which can at best never be certainly 
proved, can be easily met by pointing to the cultured 
atheists of all ages. In that case, to be sure, the attempt 
must be abandoned to feel oneself other than a personal 
being helplessly entangled in the mechanism of the world, 
— which is to renounce happiness. 

6. The teleological argument gains convincing force 
from the fact of morality (moral proof). It is true that the 
recognition of the absolute validity of the moral law can 
scarcely establish logically the postulate of practical rea- 
son, that happiness must correspond to virtue, z.e. that 
moral law must have its basis in a God who rules the 
world. For the complete and relentless exclusion of all 
thought of happiness in morality can be insisted on, and 
the control of the world by the good be taken in the sense 
of Fichte’s idealism. But whoever feels himself abso- 


The Proofs for the Existence of God 115 


lutely bound to act morally, even at the price of the sacri- 
fice of all egoistic worldly interests, must also be convinced 
that the law of the good is the highest goal in the world. 
He must therefore believe in freedom and in a creator 
and ruler of the world who has moral aims. For there is 
no such thing as laws which establish themselves.! This 
argument is sound. But it makes belief in God a moral 
duty, not the result of a theoretic demonstration. The 
appeal to the variety of moral ideals and to the fact that 
their historical evolution can be indubitably established, 
can as little invalidate this argument as can the fact of 
“irreligious” morality in men. Although morality may 
be, in its temporary content, the result of complex his- 
torical processes and exhibit the most questionable and 
imperfect forms, and far though we may be from the 
naive notion that man brings with him at birth ready- 
made (innate) moral ideas, as far as this argument is 
concerned it is only a question of the fact of absolute sub- 
jection to clearly recognized duty. It ceases to be valid 
only for him who looks on his moral activity simply as 
part of the causal law, and empties consciousness of duty 
of meaning, by regarding even moral aims as egoistic, as 
serving the worldly advantage of the individual or the 
clan (eudemonism). Such a man acts, however, against 
his conscience and denies what is inwardly most certain, 
viz. the absolute supremacy of the morally good. For 
moral scepticism, which means the slaying of the con- 


1 Kant has frequently suggested this form of the argument, although he 
has carried out his own proof in an unsatisfactory form. That to him “the 
starry sky above us and the moral law within us” are the things most worthy 
of man’s reverence, gives him the right to be regarded as one of the witnesses 
for religion, remote though he is from the position of Christian faith as a 
whole. 


116 Lhe Reasonableness of the Religious View 


science, there wait, to be sure, “superstitions” of every 
sort, and to these it falls an easy prey; but there is for it 
no real religious faith. Christianity appeals to it as little 
as does any other higher religion. And there is no object 
in trying to prove to it the existence of God or in asking 
of its confessors that they accept religion on the avgumen- 
tum a tutiort (because it is never harmful and may be 
useful). Only by this apathy of conscience being de- 
stroyed from within can the soil be prepared for religion. 
And “irreligious” morality is in truth a self-deception. 
It is the surviving remnant of a morality based on religion. 
Every man who believes absolutely in moral duty has “an 
altar to the unknown God” in his heart. For the world 
of causal law cannot establish the certainty of moral 
duty. This is intelligible only if there is in the phenome- 
nal world something higher, something non-phenomenal, 
that evokes it. 

Hence the firmest foundation for the certainty of re- 
ligion will lie here. Whoever recognizes moral duty must 
also include in his view of the world a law that subor- 
dinates nature to spirit, — must, that is, believe in God. 
For a moral order of the world without a spirit as its 
foundation is a contradiction in itself. He who denies 
God must also deny morality in the true sense of the 
word. A wish and a felt need do not guarantee the re- 
ality of what is wished for. But a duty guarantees, to 
every one that recognizes it morally, the reality of a will 
of which it is the expression. The fact that in a world 
of causal law personal beings subject their lives to the 
good, and sacrifice them to it, is the best proof for the 
existence of God. For otherwise such conduct would 
have to be regarded as a mad variety of egoistic shrewd- 


Lhe Proofs for the Existence of God 117 


ness, or be laughed at as foolish fanaticism. But even 
the “irreligious”” will not venture to do either in their 
hearts, when they gaze on the great moral heroes and 
martyrs of the good. Such conduct is intelligible only if, 
amid a phenomenal world that in itself is utterly indiffer- 
ent to morality, we believe in a purpose directed toward 
the good (kingdom of God). Therefore this argument 
carries complete conviction only to him who has surren- 
dered himself absolutely to the good. And for the Chris- 
tian there stands, in place of every other form of this 
argument, the fact of the life of Jesus and his cross, 
wherein the world-conquering and world-controlling power 
of the good reveals itself immediately as a reality to 
every soul that does not will to exclude it. Hence the 
Christian will not need the roundabout path of the uni- 
versal consciousness of duty in order to come to a belief 
in God. But he will understand from his own experience 
that this path is the right one. 

7. Hence the belief in God cannot.be cast in a theo- 
retical form that shall appeal to every rational being. 
But it is just as certain as is our-inner life, in distinction 
from the life of nature. Although the riddle of the 
world finds its rational solution only in religious faith, 
every one who knows the true nature of thought, who 
feels himself relatively free over against the world and 
yet at the same time absolutely dependent along with 
it, and who recognizes the absolute claim of moral duty, 
must believe in a reason absolutely ruling the world and 
revealed as the power of the good. God is not more 
certain to us than is the unique nature of our own thought, . 
feeling, and willing, that is, than our personal self-conscious- 
ness; but he is just as certain. He who denies him must 


118 The Reasonableness of the Religious View 


also renounce true rationality, happiness, and morality. 
Hence at bottom God himself bears witness to his exist- 
ence in the spiritual life of man (estimonium Spiritus 
Sancti internum). The devout man, the sage, and the 
moral man are the living proofs of the existence of God. 
For the Christian, Jesus is the sum and crown of this 
proof, as the perfectly devout man (Son of God), as the 
revealer of the meaning of the world (Logos), and as the 
victor over the world by his death on the cross. Jesus is 
for us the afologza of religion. 


BOOK II 


PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.— RELIGION IN ITS 
HISTORICAL PHENOMENA 


PART I: NATURE RELIGIONS 


12. Lhe Primitive Nature Religions 


I. In the following pages there is no attempt to solve 
the problem of the history of religion; this, on the 
contrary, as far as its results are obvious, is assumed. 
In the present stage of knowledge, this task, in spite of 
the worthy attempts to do it justice, like those, for in- 
stance, of Tiele and Chantepie de la Saussaye, must still 
be pronounced insoluble for a single scholar, or at any 
rate would lie entirely beyond the capacity of the pres- 
ent writer. Moreover, the criticism of the historical] 
religions, among which Christianity takes its place, has 
nothing at all to do with the historical knowledge of 
all the various forms of religion. The numberless nature 
religions (which have special interest for the historian 
just because of their variety) all represent the same 
stage of man’s religious development, so that it is enough 
for us to point out their common character in their more 
important traits. And even in the case of religions 
unique in kind, we are concerned only with their original 
religious type, not at all with their later ecclesiastical 
development, the form of their cult, or the vast variety of 

119 


120 Nature Religions 


their myths and dogmas. From the standpoint of apolo- 
getics, Brahminism and Buddhism, for instance, must be 
approached from different sides; while history will, of 
course, present them only in the closest connection. 

But it is only historically that a view can be got into the 
nature of actual human religion. Religion has never 
existed alongside of the various positive religions, but only 
as “truth” within them; while they are, on their side, the 
“actuality” of religion. And even Christianity can pri- 
marily claim to be nothing more than an individual religion, 
conditioned and limited by time and place, one which must 
be studied as part of a whole. 

2. An historical insight into the birth of religion is 
denied us, and the historical evidence does not justify 
us in asserting that the simplest and most primitive 
forms of religion are everywhere the oldest. The em- 
pirical school of the history of religion (Hume, Hegel), 
which assumes this on the analogy of other forms of 
spiritual development, can, it is true, claim its very great 
probability. But over against the idealistic school (Ebrard, 
Gladstone) and that of transition forms (Schelling, Max 
Miiller), it cannot, at least at present, bring conclusive 
proof. For the degeneration of originally more perfect 
forms of religion is, in almost all civilized races, a common 
fact. Still, the philosophy of religion has the unquestion- 
able right to begin with the survey of the most primitive 
forms. In these the special religious experiences of lead- 
ing spirits never form the decisive element, but natural 
conditions and racial temperament. Theological interests 
are wholly lacking. The difference between the assump- 
tion of the existence of an infinity of divinities and the 
cult of a special tribal divinity is not yet felt in its religious 


The Primitive Nature Religions 121 


bearings. It is simply a question of usages and practices. 
The special type of piety is determined, not by esthetic 
or philosophic considerations, but by the need of the 
clan to put itself into communication with its divinity in 
order to further its special interests. The private inter- 
ests of the individual fall, therefore, rather within the 
sphere of superstition than of ‘popular religion,” which 
always addresses itself to the needs of the whole clan. 
A mythology proper arises only with the awakening of 
higher spiritual interests. Until that point is reached, it 
is a question of a varied mass of isolated fancies which 
make religion tangible. From the religious point of view 
all these religions have at bottom the same worth and 
character, and they admit of a simply boundless number 
of different details. From constantly changing needs and 
terrors in the presence of the menacing and beneficent 
manifestations of the forces of nature, conceived as living, 
springs the variety of forms of cult and of religious con- 
ceptions. 

3. Races wholly without religion seem never to have 
existed nor to exist to-day. Even the lowest races in 
Africa, America, Australia, have magicians, ritual dances, 
dread of spirits and the dead, rude forms of sacrifice, and 
customs like taboo; even though their distrust and their 
stupidity have made it impossible to obtain answers from 
them to questions addressed to them from the point of 
view of Christianity. Even Lubbock, while denying the 
existence of religion among many tribes, reports at the 
same time customs that can have sprung only from re- 
ligion. We must lay aside the habit of limiting the word 
“religion” to the sphere that seems of religious value to 
the Christian. 


122 Nature Religions 


4. In using the name ‘“fetich worship”! to describe a 
mere worship of physical objects that cannot be called 
real religion, the fact has been overlooked that the same 
sort of worship, with its characteristic signs, has existed in 
relatively advanced religions. Even the Romans of the 
age of the Czsars have broken the statues of deities that 
had failed to furnish aid in great calamities; and the rabble 
in southern Roman Catholic countries treats in the same 
way the statues of saints that have been appealed to in 
vain, ¢.g. those of St. Florian, of Januarius, of Peter. And 
the Palladium or the black stone of the Great Goddess 
that Rome had fetched in the war with Hannibal, can as 
little be distinguished in kind from fetiches as can the 
live beasts in the highly developed Egyptian religion in 
its popular form; or the Baetylia of the Semites from 
Lebanon to Arabia; or the statues of stone or wood (£ava) 
of the Greeks, that moved, wept, sweat, were anointed. 
And we forget that, after all, not the physical objects them- 
selves, but the “spirits” that dwelt in them, or that were 
imprisoned in them by man, are the object of worship, 
while the things themselves, as such, are entirely indiffer- 
ent, changing, and numberless. The cross and the pic- 
tures of the Virgin of missions become fetiches just as 
do chronometers, compasses, and flags of sailors, or the 
horse that Cortez left behind in Honduras, or the Nu- 
remberg clock in the shape of a bear among the Ostiaks. 
But ordinarily an object suffices that has caught the eye 
or accidentally touched the hand, a skin, a block of 
wood, a stone, a horn, etc. Whoever is most “pious” 
has the most such fetiches. Later they begin to be rude 


1 The word is one introduced by Europeans in condemnation of the lower 
pagan cults, factitius, fectigo, De Brosses, 1760, 


The Primitive Nature Religions 123 


works of art, strangely carved pieces of wood, etc. At 
bottom they are not essentially different from amulets, 
talismans, and images. Moreover, we know no fetich 
religion without a belief in ruling deities. Even the black 
men of Australia know a “spirit of the waters,” the Poly- 
nesians a lord of the sky, the negroes of Borneo a creator 
of the earth, the American Indians a manitou; and in 
Africa the sky and the sun are always conceived of in 
some way as “highest.” But practical piety does not 
direct itself toward these “distant” and ‘“ harmless” 
powers, but to the near and dreaded ones. Between 
fetichism and the religion of the “elemental spirits of 
nature”’ in general, a qualitative distinction cannot be 
made. For all “spirits of nature” are thought of as exist- 
ing in stones, trees, rivers, springs, mountains, as somehow 
attached to these or revealed in them. All ancient cult 
symbols are originally “houses of the divinity,” and are 
more or less identified with it. Especially constant among 
all races living with nature and linked to animals by fear 
or hope of gain, is the directing of religion to special 
varieties of beasts (totemism). The individual animals 
are then treated with a certain pious awe, even though 
they are hunted and slain, as, for instance, bears among 
the Siberians, elephants among the Kaffirs, or leopards, 
tigers, crocodiles, wolves, in Africa. Many varieties of 
beasts are even made inviolate by this “religion,” as, for 
instance, the sacred animals in the different parts of 
Egypt. The serpent, the demonic beast, has enjoyed the 
greatest and most widespread worship, not only among 
the Ashantees and in Dahomey, but even among the 
Greeks, where it was the incarnation of the “genius” or 
of the healing divinity. Among the Aryans in a some- 


124 Nature Religions 


what advanced stage of culture the domestic animals are 
specially sacred (cow). 

5. The primitive nature religions have evidently been 
much the same among the most various races at a certain 
stage of civilization. Only later historical developments 
have brought out distinctly the differences in paganism. 
With higher culture, beginning with agriculture, they are 
inconsistent, and have, therefore, maintained themselves 
in their original rudeness only among hunting and fishing 
peoples. But they doubtless play a more or less distinct 
role in the religions of more highly developed races. With 
creed or doctrine they have nothing to do, but with fixed 
usages and practices. Not the salvation of the individual, 
but the prosperity of the tribe (famzlia, gens, natio), is what 
is sought by devotion to the divinity. The latter bears a 
distinct analogy to the “soul” of the individual, leading a 
double life in dreams and freeing itself at death from its 
body, yet corresponding to the body as if it were the ghostly 
double of the living man. For these facts Erwin Rohde’s 
researches in his Psyche offer exhaustive proof.! In the 
same way the functions of the life of nature, on which 
the prosperity of the tribe depends, appear as the activi- 
ties of spirits immanent in natural objects. Between 
man, beast, plant, stone, spring, etc., the distinction seems 
only relative. Whether the family cult of ancestors and 
the dead, centring around the graves of ancestors lying 
in the family estate, has actually been the sole beginning 
of this whole system of belief, must be regarded as very 
dubious; although it is plain that in the most various tribes 
the cult of ancestors has been the real soul of popular 
religion, even during high stages of culture. Still less 

U CE. also Tylor, Lippert, Oort, Schwally, Spencer, C. Griineisen. 


The Primitive Nature Religions 125 


probable is it that the worship of brutes (totemism) can be 
held to be the all-explaining source of this cult of the 
spirits of nature. On the contrary, the transference of 
human consciousness to the forces of nature must have 
had various starting-points. ‘ Animism” by itself is, of 
course, not religion, but a sort of primitive fancy that lies 
at the roots of religion, and that frequently appears in 
union with the idea that the spirits of nature can be com- 
pelled to appear to men (spiritism). These spirits are then 
often conceived of as taking up their abode, temporarily 
or permanently, in a (symbolic) living or lifeless object, — 
in animals, amulets, images, ‘“‘fetiches.” All this appears 
to man in the lowest stage of civilization as self-evident, and 
maintains itself with incredible tenacity in higher stages in 
the “superstition ” of the masses. 

6. The religious feeling toward these “ deities” is neither 
love nor admiration, but at bottom “ fear,’ mingled with 
trust in the help which is expected from them, partly on 
account of their natural relation to the tribe, partly on ac- 
count of the control that can be gained over them by 
magic. Between good and bad, harmful and helpful, 
spirits no fundamental distinction is made, though kindly 
disposed allies are distinguished from angry foes. And 
the same power can include both. The heat of the sun 
ripens fruit, but it also scorches the soil. The thunder- 
storm is beneficent, but it carries the lightning stroke with 
it. The stream brings prosperity, but it devastates the 
land with flood. The spirits of ancestors are, it is true, 
appealed to also for help, but a dread is felt of them, and 
protection is sought, by burial rites and sacred formulas, 
against their revenge and their uncanny activities (were- 
wolves). But the great gods ruling the whole of nature, 


126 Nature Religions 


that in a certain sense stand above all party, have little 
significance for the living cult. They leave the feelings 
cold, like a primitive metaphysics. Magic and sacred for- 
mulas that protect from the anger of the gods or assure 
their aid are the innermost “mystery” of religion. Sacri- 
fice, in its highest form, is communion of the community 
with the divinity ; in it the two become one by the rite of 
partaking of a common food. With the moral life of the 
soul religion has, as yet, no connection. It is true, how- 
ever, that reverence for the gods and fear of their ven- 
geance serve the moral interests of the clan. Probably 
almost all the social customs that exist in our society 
have some sort of religious origin. Certain spots be- 
come “holy” (taboo), and so protect from vengeance and 
robbery. Ordeals and oaths lay the foundation for a 
primitive conception of law. The house and marriage 
have almost never been left without dedication to the 
spirits that protect the family and assure its continuance. 
And with self-denial in the service of the gods begins 
a moral discipline. In fastings and castigations man 
practises the subjection of sensual inclinations to higher 
motives. The dedication of the youth with pain and 
abstinence steels courage. The cult of ancestors rouses 
piety. But the ends that religion is to serve are, never- 
theless, in themselves purely sensuous, and the activities 
resulting from it are an arbitrary ritual, that can almost 
never be interpreted from the point of view of moral pur- 
pose. Special usages in respect to food, arising from 
certain natural objects being held sacred or from super- 
stitious notions; choice of days; avoidance of particular 
places as sharing in the “sanctity” of the god and 
dangerous; definite sacred dress; sacrifices with prescribed 


Lhe Primitive Nature Religions 127 


ritual; magic spells whose effectiveness depends on their 
literal use, and a hundred other things, do not belong, in 
and for themselves, to the sphere of morality. Nay, they 
are apt, if excessive value is laid upon them on religious 
grounds, to distort the feeling for the moral. The anger 
of the gods is ascribed to offences against natural customs 
or superstitious usages, not to actual sin. The priest is an 
uncanny sorcerer. Not in his religious or moral elevation, 
but in his magic spells, his ecstatic ravings, his sacred 
dress, lies his power over the divinity, in which alone the 
community is interested. Hence the real nature of reli- 
gion does not come here to any clear expression. 

7. A stage of religion such as has been characterized 
above has been found everywhere among the savage 
races of Australia, America, Africa, and the South Sea ; 
although in one place the worship of the dead, in another 
totemism, in a third the simple ascription of souls to natu- 
ral objects, plays the more prominent réle; and although, 
in many cases, the thought of a “ spirit”’ ruling the world, 
especially the sky, is visible in the background. Among 
the fishing and hunting races of northern Asia it is still 
often preserved beneath the surface of Buddhism, Islam, 
and Christianity. It must have long governed all the 
dwellers in the steppes of the interior of Asia (Turanians), 
but even there it is partly transformed into higher forms 
(China, Japan, Finns), partly supplanted by culture re- 
ligions. In really absolute purity it no longer exists any- 
where among historically living races, but all the more in 
its after-effects in higher forms of religion. Worship of 
the dead, magic (Shamanism) with artificial technique and 
ecstasies, amulets, spells, sacred animals, stones, trees, 
Springs, mountains, transformations of men into animals, 


3 ae Nature Religions 


superstitious fear of ghosts, and many other traits show 
that even in the religions of the classic civilized races such 
a substratum has lived on, and has probably played a far 
greater réle in popular belief and local cults than the 
systematic, developed mythology and theosophy of poets 
and priests. Nay, a keen eye can trace the vestiges of 
this stage in the present form of popular Christianity in 
Europe. 

8. In America the religion characteristic of this stage 
was on the point of passing in two places into the stage 
of culture religion when the native civilization was de- 
stroyed by the Europeans, viz. among the Aztecs and 
Toltecs in the Mexican highlands, and among the Peru- 
vians of the plateau of the Andes. In both places a plane 
was reached which reminds us of the Assyrian and Egyp- 
tian religions, and perhaps opened the way to something 
higher, if the accounts of the conditions are not colored 
by Christian ideas. The Aztecs worshipped chiefly the 
man-eating war-god, Huitzilopochtli, the Toltecs the gentle 
god of the blessings of nature and of civilization, Quetzal- 
cohuatl (Winged Snake), from whose return the renewal 
of the golden age was expected. And King Netzahual- 
coyotl (1400) is said to have conceived a religion of the 
one true God, creator of the world, without idol or bloody 
sacrifices. Beautiful prayers, full of penitent feeling and 
lofty ethics, have been handed down to us by (e.g.) Saha- 
gun. <A sort of baptism and confession existed. Legends 
of the flood and a cosmogony are mentioned. Alongside 
of this, to be sure, frightful human sacrifices and the mystic 
partaking of the blood-drenched symbol of the war-god 
were in vogue in the temple-palaces of Mexico. The 
socialistic theocracy that the “children of the sun”’ (Incas) 


Ancient Semitic Paganism 129 


had erected in Peru was, according to Garcilasso de la 
Vega, also founded on a very highly developed nature 
religion. Legends of the creation and the flood, confes- 
sion, temple virgins, beautiful hymns, the conception ‘of 
civic duty and labor as service of the god, stood alongside 
of a fierce cult with human sacrifices. The Inca Tupac 
Yupanqui (1440) aimed at the cult of a spiritual deity by 
whom the “sun” was governed and guided and who 
needed no external rites. But for the religion of humanity 
these efforts have had no significance. 


13. Ancient Semitic Paganism 


1. The pastoral tribes that have inhabited the pastures 
and deserts of northern Arabia, the Sinai peninsula, and 
the valley of the Euphrates, and in part made themselves 
masters later in civilized lands, —the Israelites, Arame- 
ans, Edomites, Moabites, and Assyrians, — show in their 
religion almost all the traits of the primitive paganism 
described above, but with a special quality and a capacity 
for development that give them a place of their own in 
the history of religion. Our knowledge of them by infer- 
ence from later culture religions is supplemented by 
Arabian paganism, which has remained most faithful to 
the original type. Through the labors of Wellhausen 
and Robertson Smith, the essential character of these 
religions has been made intelligible to us. 

2. The divinities of the Semites show their original 
character as deities of a primitive nature religion dis- 
tinctly enough in their association with natural objects, 
chiefly sacred stones, springs, trees, mountains. Sinai 
and the sacred stone of Bethel correspond exactly to the 
rocks in which the Arabian divinities, especially Al-Lat 

K 


130 Nature Religions 


and Manat, were worshipped, or to the Kaaba stone. 
The springs of Kadesh and Beersheba were sacred, like 
those of the Syrian and Arabian deserts. The gods of 
the Semites are primarily, as in all primitive paganism, 
very numerous, and can be increased at pleasure, accord- 
ing to the local cults and the needs of individual tribes. 
But in the numerous local gods the same divine activity 
was, after all, felt at bottom. Hence they could be ex- 
changed, and the worshipper could turn from one to another 
without thinking of a real religious change. With this 
pagan tendency Israel had to struggle down to the time of 
the Exile. Along with it went, for instance among the 
Arabians, the conception of “divine beings” that enjoyed 
no tribal cult and as “demons” (Jinns) lived only in 
the fancy of the people. Of a monotheism in the higher 
religious sense there was no trace, and just as little of any 
theological interest in the throng of deities. The Arabians, 
Assyrians, and Arameans have adopted the artificial multi- 
plicity of divinities of the civilized races among which 
they lived without any feeling of inconsistency. The 
Edomites, Moabites, and Ammonites have not felt them- 
selves to be monotheists in the presence of the polythe- 
ism of their neighbors. And the religious history of 
Israel becomes unintelligible, if a conscious theoretic 
monotheism is thought of as its starting-point. 

But among all these races, the character of the deities 
as nature divinities — chiefly connected with the manifes- 
tations of light in the sun and in tempests — was entirely 
cast in the shade by their relation to the life of the tribe 
and to its territory. The god to whom worship was ad- 
dressed was the Baal (lord) of the fruitful soil, or the lord 
and king of the tribe. The tribal community was con- 


Ancient Semitic Paganism E3t 


ceived of as united with him in a very realistic fashion. 
The blood of the tribe was of inviolable sanctity, and was 
conceived of as closely linked to the life of the divinity. 
Hence in the common partaking of blood, or in similar 
rites of communion, the community of the tribe with its 
god was continually strengthened, and in case it seemed 
obscured, restored. This was probably the significance 
of the ritual sacrifice proper among the Semites, in which 
the blood of a domestic animal, as one closely connected 
with the human community, was viewed as a sacred 
cement to strengthen the unity of the tribe and its 
union with its god. Sacrifice was not originally offered 
to the divinity by fire. Among the Arabians the simple 
offering to the god by smearing the sacred “stone” 
or the “pillar” with blood and by the ritual partaking 
of the flesh of the victim has always remained in vogue. 
The offering of the “odor” by “fire” presupposes a 
higher conception of heavenly deities. Bloodless sacri- 
fices were probably originally only tributes to the deity as 
“lord of the fruitful soil,’ and served to maintain the 
sacred places and the cult. Hence this religion certainly 
tended toward henotheism, without any theological mon- 
otheistic conception playing any part in it. And many 
elements were lacking that among other savage races 
counteracted the tendency toward henotheism. The Sem- 
ites had goddesses, it is true, as they had gods. But how- 
ever popular these might be in the cult, as for example 
Al-Lat, Manat, Al-Uzza among the Arabians, still they 
never have the character of the great mother-goddess of 
nature, who stands alongside of the generating sky-god 
and so necessarily transforms the religion into polytheism 
proper. The speech of the Semites, in which all nouns 


132 Nature Religions 


are closely and unmistakably linked with verb stems, 
made it difficult to individualize the divinities, and to at- 
tach to the names of deities definite distinguishing con- 
ceptions. The most usual names of deities marked only 
the relationship of the god, as lord and ruler, to the com- 
munity or to the land (Baal, El, Moloch, Adonis, etc.). 
The monotonous patriarchal life of the shepherd on the 
steppes, under the impression of few and mighty natural 
phenomena, did not favor the richer development of myth. 
The low plane of culture nowhere offered in poetry or art 
the opportunity to stamp the individual figures of the gods, 
as living and different, on the fancy of the people. More- 
over, the worship of ancestors seems to have influenced 
these religions much less strongly than it did the Aryan. 
On the other hand, the element leading to henotheism 
among these tribes, was brought out with special force. 
The religious life of the individual was wholly lost in the 
consciousness of membership of the tribe, even more so 
than was generally the case at this stage of culture. The 
right to participate in the sacred rites belonged by birth 
only to him who had in him the sacred blood of the clan. 
The proselyte gained it only artificially by a legal cere- 
mony ("3). And we have no right to doubt that all 
these conceptions have originally been very realistic and 
spontaneous. 

3. In the belief in the deity as lord and king of a 
people lies naturally also the impulse to ascribe to him 
a moral significance. It is true that in the legal con- 
ceptions of these races the deity remains an irresponsible 
autocrat. But he represents, nevertheless, by inner neces- 
sity, the great interests of the common moral life of the 
people. Hence the more the clan becomes a real people, 


Ancient Semitic Paganism 133 


the more ethical must its religion become. The more, too, 
must the impulse toward real monotheism increase. For, 
with the strengthening of the national consciousness, the 
exclusive worship of the national deity must grow. And 
an aggressive tendency must develop, to try to gain for 
him the lordship over other deities. But at first every 
tribe was bound to its own god, without passing judgment 
on the existence and the significance of the gods of neigh- 
boring tribes. The religious mood corresponded to that of 
a people toward its sovereign. Its fundamental character 
was absolute devotion, mingled with fear of the god’s dark 
will and of his wrath. The accursed and criminals were 
rooted out (driven out) lest the community incur the divine 
anger. And the readiness for self-accusation and for the 
sacrifice of what was dearest, even of one’s own child, in 
order to avert divine anger, is a universal characteristic 
of these religions. But with this could very easily be com- 
bined enthusiasm for the god and confidence in his good 
will in normal times. The deity remains inscrutable and 
with no limits of law to confine him. But he has, neverthe- 
less, naturally a benevolent interest in his community. 
The conception of him as the lord and that of him as the 
father of his children at first run into one another with no 
feeling of essential difference. With fear of the anger 
of the terrible and the “holy” one alternates, with no 
transition link, the proud trust in the people’s “ righteous- 
ness,” that is, the conviction of being what the god de- 
mands. The fanaticism that impels to religious war with 
other tribes for the honor of one’s own god, in order to 
destroy and drive out “his enemies,” is a natural fruit of 
this religion. And whoever goes over to a tribe goes over 
also to its god. “Thy people my people, thy God my 


134 Nature Religions 


God,” is the natural expression of piety in these tribes 
(Ruth 1, 16). Here lie the roots of monotheism, of uni- 
versal religion, of prophecy, and of the belief in the self- 
revelation of God. Only as religion can they have a 
sound growth. The impulse of thought toward the con- 
ception of the highest as a unity never actually attains 
to the monotheism of religion, but only to the pan- 
theism of priestly cults or the philosophical idea of the 
absolute? 

4. In its content Semitic paganism originally presented 
by no means a high stage of religious development. It 
has supplied strong and valuable incentives neither to 
morality nor to culture. And it has put actual obstacles 
in the way of theological and philosophical thought. The 
tribal lord of these religions demanded obedience, humility, 
and exact fulfilment of the requirements that he had made 
known. To reflect on him, or to try to fathom the rules 
by which he acted, seemed a violation of religious rever- 
ence. The races that have remained at this religious stage 
have not been able to attain to a higher spiritual life. 
Only a higher stage of culture, in which the rude life of 
the tribe became a really national life for which morality was 
an important consideration, and a stage of spiritual devel- 
opment that recognized in the inner life of the soul and in 
its attitude to the idea of the good something higher than 
lay in the prosperity of the tribe, could open higher paths. 
This, however, demanded higher manifestations of the 
divinity than primitive paganism expected, viz. revelation 
and prophecy. On the other hand, in the absolute devo- 
tion to the will of the divinity as the tribal lord, in the 
absence of a definite mythology and of a female divinity, 
and in the belief in the living intercourse of God with his 


Paganism of the Indo-Europeans 135 


people, lay, at any rate in form, the conditions for a more 
perfect religion. 


14. Lhe Paganism of the Indo-Europeans 


I. The religion to which the variously developed cul- 
ture religions of the so-called Aryan or Indo-European 
races—races akin in speech and mythology — go back, 
shows the characteristic traits of primitive paganism dis- 
tinctly enough. Magic, ghosts of all sorts, demons in the 
’ shape of animals, sacred stones and symbols, preserve dis- 
tinctly enough the remnants of the original and universal 
human superstition. Above all, the cult of the ancestors 
of the family and the tribe has maintained itself here, with 
a vitality and tenacity that we find nowhere else, as the 
basis of local popular piety, even where the more highly 
developed theology which conceived of the dead as 
banished to their own world of shades without any com- 
munity with the living (Homer), was at bottom incom- 
patible with it. Sacrifices to the dead, the sanctity of 
graves, the consecration of the hearthfire, the passing of 
the wife at marriage from the cult of the paternal house to 
that of her husband, the duty of the son to pay honors 
to his deceased father and to his ancestors, the basing of 
the city and the rights of the citizens on the worship of 
ancestors,’ etc., exhibit unmistakably this type of piety. 
Even the gods of light that later occupy the foreground 
appear in different shape and dwell in the womb of 
mother earth, thus keeping in memory the figures of the 
ancestral deities beneath the earth. These great gods of 
nature, however, have not had primarily the most signifi- 
cance for the cult. The vast mass of natural phenomena 


1 Erwin Rohde, Fustel de Coulanges, 


136 Nature Religions 


was unquestioningly ascribed to divine spirits that appear 
as often distinct from, as they do alternating with, or pass- 
ing into, one another. 

2. Buta basis of piety of this sort gave these races a 
stronger sense than the other uncivilized races had of the 
beneficent powers of light and life that rule and determine 
the life of man. And among them the gods have devel- 
oped into more amiable figures, bound up more closely 
and beneficently with the interests of men, than among 
their neighbors. The great struggle in nature between 
Life-light-spring and Death-night-winter is with them inter- 
woven with the moral fortunes of man. The revolution of 
the sun, the regaining of the golden treasures of light in 
spring, and the grand exhibition of the storm in which 
spring warmth conquers the deadly spell of winter, form 
the thrilling starting-points, filled with genuine poetry, for 
a rich and beautiful development of myth. The bright sky 
was evidently the centre of religious contemplation. To 
the children of the harsh highlands, light was not a scorch- 
ing flame, but the source of life and joy. The piety of 
the people even takes part in the struggle of light with 
darkness, and aids it with its prayers. The good man 
feels that he is a participant in the fight against death and 
disorder. In his worship he tries to reénforce the power 
of the beneficent deity, and to increase the divine anger 
against the destructive powers, by the intoxicating liba- 
tion. In his moral life he feels himself a combatant 
against the world-destroying forces of night and confusion 
(piety, fidelity). And the gods walk, fight, suffer, and 
rejoice with men. Poetry links the figures of the gods 
and their doings to charming tales, and makes of them 
beings of a vivacious personal quality. And philosophy 


Paganism of the Indo-Europeans ee Y 


seeks by thought to fathom the riddle of the world of 
which the forces of nature are revelations. Thus ethics, 
poetry, and philosophy have their strongest roots in this 
religion. But for simple, complete devotion to duty, and 
for the supremacy of the religious life, there is here no 
place,— least of all for religious monotheism. What 
seems to point in this direction (Max Miiller) is at bottom 
the philosophic impulse to grasp the unity of the world, or 
the effort to win a unitary starting-point for thought, that 
is, is a scientific or philosophical tendency. The cult, of 
course, always sees in the single God to whom a ritual act 
is addressed “the divinity,” and the sacrificial prayers 
very often sound monotheistic. But that does not prevent 
the devout man on other occasions from extolling another 
deity just as much. The gods in this religion are pri- 
marily individual figures akin to man, of a moral, though a 
very primitively moral, character. Thus the figures of the 
gods are easily blended with heroic legend and transformed 
into heroic figures with heroic fortunes. But it has been 
impossible for these races to stamp their gods consistently 
with the idea of the “good,” even as far as this was then 
known. For the character of natural forces which at- 
tached ineradicably to the gods, with their caprice, their 
unbridled desires, and their passionate irresponsible rule, 
thwarted every attempt to mould them into really ideal 
moral figures (dissonances). 

3. The great gods of the Aryans are the gods of light, 
that, represented as “fathers”! in the style of ancestral 
religion, rule the bright sky. Their beneficent activity 
and their conflicts are embodied in the imaginings of a 
pastoral people to whom the domestic animals are the 

1 Pitar, wmarnp, pater (dyaus, dies). 


138 Nature Religions 


natural symbols of the beneficent (cow). The sacramen- 
tal blessing of these religions is the life-giving moisture 
whose granting or denial determines the fertility of the 
earth. It is often symbolized! as an inspiring, soul-elevat- 
ing draught, and then forms the crown of the cult. The 
powers hostile to life keep it prisoner; the gods of life set 
it free. The captive “virgins” are freed by heroes. The 
nourishment-bringing “cows” (clouds) are untied. The 
storm-god, armed with lightning and hammer (thunder- 
bolt, Indra’s club), dashes in pieces the huge monsters that 
represent the destructive reign of winter. He is the 
Scandinavian slayer of the Giants, the Vritah4n, the victor 
over the Titans (Zeus, Indra, Thor). Man feels himself 
related to the gods. The divine spark lives in him too. 
His ancestors are of the same race as the fathers of the 
gods. The mysterious centre of the cult is the kindling 
and preservation of the sacred fire in house and city. 
The fallen heroes are with the great gods. Now they 
appear riding the storm with the storm-god, as Odin’s 
(Indra’s) army ; again feasting in the castle of the gods 
(Valhalla), or in the heavenly fields beneath the ocean of 
the sky (Frau Holle). They may return in new form to 
earth. Out of the Fountain of Youth the “souls” pass 
into new-born bodies to new life. The forces of nature 
become forces of historicallife and of culture. They appear 
as representatives of time and of fate, Parcee and Norns 
(Urdhr, Verdhandi, Skuld), as lords of the battle-field 
(Walkyries), as guardians of the eternal rights of human 
ordinances concerning family and law (Erinyes), or as 
representatives of love and of inspiration (Graces, Muses). 


1 Soma, nectar, mead, milk, honey. Dionysus. Only through this food do 
the gods become immortal. 


Paganism of the Indo-Europeans 139 


But also all growth and life in nature, in bush and tree, in 
mountain and wood, in river and spring, is embodied in 
personal forms. .In the great festivals at the two equinoxes 
are seen the coming to life and the death of the god of 
light. The cult is independent of priestly castes and of 
theology. The father of the family is the natural repre- 
sentative of the ancestral cult. The chieftain fulfils him- 
self, or through his servants, the ritual acts by which the 
divinities of the city or land receive their dues. The cult 
knows, of course, also elements of penance and the search 
for reconciliation. But in general it is without any spe- 
cially marked penitential character,— happy and full of 
life. 

4. The most distinct memory of this stage of religion 
_ is probably preserved in the oldest parts of the Rig-Veda, 
far removed though these hymns are from the actual 
beginnings of Aryan piety. It sounds distinctly through 
the theology, epic, legends, and customs of the European 
races.’ Of these races the Latin-Sabine has perhaps kept, 
amid Hellenic-Roman culture, the original religious charac- 
ter most faithfully, in accordance with the native tendency 
of these tribes toward order, tradition, and conduct, and 
away from imagination. In the geziz and the junones of 
the men and the women appears the conception of the 
divine that fills all life; in the manes and penates, in the 
ancestral festivals and halls, in the zzdigetes and Semones, 
the memory of the ancestral cult, with special distinctness. 
The divinities are spread through the world as diz Supert 
(genitales), medioxumt, aquatiles (depths of the earth). In 
the generaliter confuse invocare of the divinities and in the 
enormous number of the divinities (”awmzna), really known 


1 Homer, Wibdelungen, Shah Nahmeh, Ramayana, 


140 Nature Religions 


to almost no one, ! appears the original indifference to the 
distinction between the individual deities; and in the cult 
of the sacred fire, in the solemnities of marriage, in the 
mundus (cave of spirits) of the cities, in the painstaking 
protection of the rights of each divinity, and in the tradi- 
tional ritual formulas, the relation of religion to the events 
and interests of the house and the city is shown in all 
its strength. The vex sacrorum, the pontifices and augurs, 
show the political character of the piety. Figures like the 
larve and lemures recall the worship of the dead. So also 
in the popular piety of northern Germany and in the local 
cults of Greece the religion of the Edda or of Homer is 
not to be assumed, but a simple unsystematized worship of 
life-giving and life-preserving spirits, connected with the 
worship of ancestors and memories of the home. 


1 Nigidius Figulus and Terentius Varro. 


PART II: CULTURE RELIGIONS 


15. Lhe Hamitic Priestly Religions 


1. No race of importance has remained stationary at 
the stage of primitive paganism, although all the religions 
of the civilized races preserve vividly the memory of this 
stage. During it religion cannot attain at all its real 
development. The divine figures that spring from the 
life of nature and are indissolubly bound up with it can 
neither secure nor satisfy man’s moral personality over 
against the world. Hence, wherever the human spirit has 
reached a higher development, it tries to find in the divin- 
ity something standing above the life of nature. But 
where impressions of the supernatural on the souls of 
especially qualified men do not exist (revelation, prophets), 
the development of religious thought cannot transcend 
nature as such; it must stop where the spiritual life of 
man, as known by experience, finds its limits. Religion 
can be developed by the lore and science of the priests 
into pantheism, by the creative power of poetry into 
ethical polytheism, by the power of political ideas into a 
state religion ; but what its inmost essence urges it to seek 
cannot be found here. Only God himself can beget real 
religion. Only religious genius can give it life. 

2. In the lands of ancient civilization, Mesopotamia 
and Egypt, two religions developed from the mingling of 
different races and civilizations; religions very different in 
external form, but akin in many details, above all in the 

141 


142 Culture Religious 


fact that priestcraft had created from the old local gods a 
cycle of divinities that were seen in the great processes of 
nature, especially in the revolution of the heavenly bodies, 
and that were looked on as revelations of the one divine 
power ruling in nature. Monotheism, as religion under- 
stands it, was remote from both, but their development 
urged them toward a philosophical monotheism of a pan- 
theistic character. These two religions have naturally, in 
view of the lively intercourse between the realms on the 
Nile and the Euphrates, often modified one another and 
have had a common influence on the civilization of western 
Asia. 

3. The religion that developed, first in the ancient 
priestly cities of southern Mesopotamia! and then chiefly 
in Babylon, probably owed its chief content, not to 
Semitic immigrants, but to the earlier inhabitants of the 
land, in whose tongue and script its oldest documents are 
couched. Still, the Semites contributed their own reli- 
gious ideas to this older religion. This religion, therefore, 
is to be defined as “ Hamitic,” z.e. as arising, not from 
purely Semitic elements, but from a mixture of the 
Semitic with a foreign southern civilization. The local 
cults of the various cities and provinces, with their magic 
formulas and sacred emblems, were, of course, never fully 
absorbed by it, nor made impossible by the exclusive wor- 
ship of one great god. The merging of the old gods 
into one whole of which they are the separate manifesta- 
tions, never had, in general, any significance for the reli- 
gious life of the people, but only formed part of the 
culture of the priestly class. The ethical element, al- 


1Telloh, Eridu (Ea), Agade, Urtk (Sin). Then Uru (Sin and Ishtar), 
Babylon (Mardtk, Nebo). 


Lhe Hamitic Priestly Religions 143 


though of course not lacking, recedes in this priestly code 
behind a philosophy of nature. 

4. The unity of the life of nature is resolved into three 
groups of deities (Anu-Anatum, Bel-Belit, Ea-Oannes-Dam- 
kina), and is represented by the cult of the seven planets 
(Ninib=Saturn, Nabu= Mercury, Nergal= Mars, Mardik 
=Jupiter, Ishtar=Venus,! Sin=Moon, Shamash = Sun), 
under whose names the old local deities of the great na- 
tional shrines were still reverenced. The temple towers, 
rising in seven stages, were dedicated to the cult of these 
stars. In the relationship of Samdan-Ninib-Tammuz and 
Ishtar (the hero who is shorn of his strength and the 
woman who becomes a cruel tyrant), in the death of © 
the god in self-kindled flames, in the Saczean festival 
and in the ritual prostitutions, the transformations of the 
life of nature are reflected in the cult. The great god- 
dess of nature, the symbol of the reproductive powers 
of the universe, Ishtar-Semiramis (Dido, Omphale), is 
the real religious centre of the cult. She destroys the 
reproductive life of nature with which she was con- 
nected, when it has reached its culmination,? and unites 
herself with the new deity that has sprung from her, 
the spouse of his mother. The mystery of sex, the ex- 
change of sex and its dress, the rule and the fiery death 
of the god (Saczean festival), here constitute the “ mys- 
tery, of. the-cult. In its cosmogony the world springs 
from the great chaotic universal mother, who “cuts in 
pieces” Bel, who in his son Mardtk attains a new and 


1 As morning star, the wild slayer of men (Agade, Arbela); as evening 
star, the sensuous goddess of nature (Urfik, N ineveh). 

2 Samdan-Ninus-Sardanapalus. The lion-slayer, who finally grows effemi- 
nate and dies in his own flame (Heracles), 


144 Culture Religions 


victorious manifestation. In the struggle with the chaotic 
and destructive power of the universe, Tidmat (symbol- 
ized as a dragon), the timid gods are saved by the young 
god of light, Mardak, to whom they give the weapons of 
the lightning, whom they acknowledge as king, and who 
as “lord” takes his father Bel’s place and slays the 
dragon. Thus the world of light is born out of a chaotic 
world of monsters incapable of life. Man has in him 
Bel’s blood, which the Elohim have mixed with earth. In 
the legend of the great flood, according to which the dar- 
ling of the gods, Khasis-Adra (Noah and Enoch in one), 
is saved in a ship and transferred without dying to the 
abodes of the Elohim, and in the journey of the goddess 
of life into the land of the dead and her return to the 
upper world, ancient Semitic elements show themselves 
that in part passed into Israel’s religion. The “descent to 
Hades” of the mourning goddess is, of course, originally 
the decline of the vigor of the year, and her return, 
effected by the gods of light, the rebirth of nature. The 
bloom and the decay of vegetation are brought into con- 
nection with the lower world. The “ awakening of the 
dead” has reference primarily to the gods of the sun and 
of spring, and takes place by means of the “water of 
life” in the palace of the goddess of the dead. There 
dwell the “souls” in the house of eternity (Ishtar’s descent 
to Hades). The religious hymns of the Babylonians and 
Assyrians recall not seldom the tone of the Biblical 
psalms,’ and the conception of royalty as a manifesta- 


1 Hammurabi’s inscription: “God, my creator, grasp my arm, strengthen 
the breath of my mouth, guide my hands, O Lord of Light.” — Hymns: “In 
heaven who is sublime ? Thou alone, thou art sublime. On earth who is 
sublime? Thou alone, thou art sublime. Thy awful command is proclaimed 
in heaven; the gods cast themselves down. Thy awful command is proclaimed 


Lhe flamitic Priestly Religions 145 


tion of the deity also recalls Old Testament thought. The 
ruler who in Babylon at the New Year grasps “ Bel’s” 
hand becomes the “son of Bel,” the legitimate king. 
But the facts that the cult is dominated by the worship 
of the goddess of nature, by the orgiastic and immoral 
element inhering in this religion, and that the mechan- 
‘ism of nature and its necessity completely outweigh the 
moral elements, exclude all progress toward true religion. 
From the point of view of the philosophy of religion the 
question whether the religion of the northern Semites 
(Canaanites), especially the Phoenicians, was unique, or 
influenced by Babylonian and Egyptian elements, has no 
significance. As to its religious plane, it stood, at any 
rate, not above the Babylonian. Babylonian speech and 
culture ruled in Canaan before the Israelites moved in 
(Tell-el-Amarna letters). In Assyria,1 Lydia, Armenia, 
Syria, the direct influence of Babylon can be definitely 
proved. The pyre of the god, the Saczean festival, the 
mourning for the dead god, ritual prostitution, show every- 
where the traces of Mesopotamian civilization. 

5. The culture religion of the Egyptian priests of the 
sun arose, like the Chaldean, on the foundation of a 


on earth; the genii kiss the ground. Thy awful command: ‘Who will in- 
struct me ? Who will equal me?’ Among the gods, thy brothers, thou hast 
not thy like.” — Nebuchadnezzar’s prayer: “To Mardfk, my Lord, I say: O 
eternal prince, lord of all creatures, for the king whom thou lovest, whom 
thou callest by name, dost thou watch.... I am a work of thy hands, 
According to thy goodness, God, which thou spreadest over all, . . . kindle in 
me the love of thy high majesty; let my heart be filled with awe of thy 
divinity. ... Give me all that according to thy counsels is good for me.” — 
“Lord, my transgressions are many, great are my sins.” How long wilt 
thou be angry ? When wilt thou say: Peace to thy soul?” “T sigh like the 
dove, I am bowed like the reed. Tears are my meat.” 
1 Ashur and Rammén take their place in the Babylonian pantheon, 


L 


146 Culture Religions 


very primitive and strongly totemistic popular religion, 
viz. from the local cults of the various Egyptian cities 
and provinces, and is, like the Chaldean, the outcome of 
a long historical development and of a mixture of differ- 
ent tribes. It never had vogue among the people. The 
latter, on the contrary, clung with tenacious affection to 
their local gods and their sacred animals; their religion 
appears, at the close of Egypt’s independent history, not 
spiritualized, but fossilized and vulgarized. The peculiar 
conditions of the valley of the Nile and its marvellous fertil- 
ity naturally play a dominant réle in its myth. Khemi, 
the black earth, is the blessed land. MHapi, the Nile, 
to which zealous homage is paid, the counterpart of the 
river of heaven, is the life-giver to the land that it waters 
and nourishes, and to which it reveals the blessings of 
heaven. As early as the old empire, Memphis added to 
its cult of Phtah a universal Egyptian cult.1 Much more 
marked is, in the middle empire (in Thebes and On), the 
progress toward a consistent ethical and religious develop- 


ment.2 A theological phase proper, however, the religion. 


had not reached, when, after the expulsion of the Hyksos, 
the dynasty of the Rameses and the succeeding ones 
(eighteenth to twenty-first) gave the new empire the char- 
acter of a religious theocracy. For a time the powerful 
priests of Thebes wielded a real lordship after the fall of 
Khu-en-Aten, who, as it seems, tried by violence to trans- 
form religion in the direction of a henotheism of the 
sun-god (disk of the sun, eighteenth dynasty). In this 


1 Phtah is incarnate in the Apis-bull; his symbol is the scarabzeus. Beside 
him stands Tum. Yet even then the cult of the gods of light flourished in 
On and Abydos. 

2 The labyrinth in Thebes was the meeting-place of all the Egyptian gods, 
Tum-Ka, the one self-created god, gave it its name. 


~ 


Lhe Hamitic Priestly Religions 147 


period of development, under the influence of the priests, 
the local deities are almost entirely incorporated with 
Ra as the One, although each went on enjoying his 
cult at his shrine unchanged. The wealth of the great 
shrines grew immensely. In the steadily increasing wor- 
ship of the dead the ancient cults of Ra and of Osiris were 
blended. The later changes of rulers and developments 
of cult favored an archaizing and hierarchical rigidity in 
religion. 

6. Even the priestly religion of Thebes, Abydos, and 
On always presupposes the cults of a countless number 
of gods. It worships the sacred beasts with which the 
individual deities are closely connected, and ascribes the 
highest value to magic formulas and superstitious acts, to 
secret holy names and the worship of the dead. But still 
it developed unquestionably, on the foundation of the old 
nature myths, of worship of the dead, and of a view of 
nature that was growing scientific, higher theological ideas 
that were closely connected with the very advanced ethical 
ideals of the educated class. The individual gods became 
for the priests so many manifestations of the divinity 
that found its full expression in the god of light. In the 
myth of this deity was set forth both the fortunes of man 
and the transformations of nature. It is true that there 
lay something dualistic in the struggle of light with the 
destructive powers, but even the latter are at bottom 
included in the unity of the life of nature. Osiris and 
Set are brothers. Hence in prayers and panegyrics of 
the divinity there are very often phrases that sound 
monotheistic. Very often “the god” is addressed as the 
One, Sole, Only, out of whom millions proceed, the first 
of all things, who exists of himself. Acts are per- 


148 Culture Religions 


formed in the “name of God.” But this One, Divine, is 
at bottom, after all, nature itself, “the spouse of his 
mother, the mother of her father, the daughter of her 
son,” that remains the same in all transformations, and 
is the One in all individual manifestations; who is what 
she is and whose veil no one lifts (Sais). 

7. The basis in nature of this theology is the life of 
the Nile valley, especially the struggle of the fructifying 
forces of that region (which are also conceived of as 
deities of light) with the forces of heat that bring about the 
death of nature; these also appear as deities of foreign 
lands and of the salt sea that swallows up the Nile. But 
on this foundation is presented the struggle of good and 
evil and the death and victory over death of the human 
soul— which is one with the divine life. In the rising 
sun is embodied the omnipotence of the creating spirit 
that, in itself identical with primeval substance, by an 
act of will broke through the darkness of the primeval 
waters and called the world to life. This creating spirit 
is the same, whether he be worshipped as Amun or as 
Tum; -Ositis-Horus, Phtah. “These are all at “bottom 
Ra (the light of the sun). So too in Isis-Hathor-Neith 
the same reproductive force of the universe appears in 
various cult forms. The other local gods are subordi- 
nated to these divinities proper, as servants, compan- 
ions, or as brothers and sisters. Osiris is the great 
beneficent god who fructifies the earth, the son of sky 
and earth, identical with the sun. His spouse is the 
thousand-named Isis, the nature-mother. By day he 
roams, as “soul of Ra,” this world; by night he becomes 
the god of the dead of Abydos “ who dwells in the west.” 
What appears as the history of each day is amplified into 


The Hamitic Priestly Religions 149 


a history of nature. When the heat destroys life, then 
Osiris is slain by his “brother,” Set-Typhon.1 He becomes 
the god of the dead. But Isis, who has sought him with 
lamentations, gives birth to the “avenger of his father,” 
Horus, the newly rising sun, the new-born vigor of nature, 
in whom Osiris is renewed and who slays Set. All this 
was originally myth belonging purely to the realm of 
nature and attached to local cults (as in Byblos). But 
it is made a mysterious expression for the victory of 
human virtue and for the power of resurrection that 
conquers death. Horus, “the spouse of his mother,’ be- 
comes the type of the man fighting for piety and justice. 
Isis with the Horus child is the first apotheosis of mater- 
nity. The Nile is thought of as the beneficent revelation 
of the great god, and identified with the ocean of the sky, 
out of which the gods rise. In the king the deity reveals 
himself as lord and lawgiver. The king is Ra; but as in- 
dividual he sacrifices before his own image. Hence, not 
the individual is divine, but the office. The wearer of the 
sacred double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt repre- 
sents to man the divine. 

8. Souls are (like Osiris) not thought of as dying, but 
as going into the other world.” If they pass the tribunal 


1 Set is an ancient Egyptian god who is later identified with the Baal of the 
conquering Hyksos. He appears more and more as representative of the 
powers of ill. Astrologically the Osiris myth is interwoven with the season of 
the Dog Star. (Phoenix, 1461 years.) He appears as man in the tale of the 
two brothers, which in many details recalls the narratives of Genesis concern- 
ing Joseph in Egypt. 

2 In the oldest times the cult of the dead centred around K4&, the persist- 
ing spectral shade that uses the mummy or statue of the deceased to prolong 
life and that needs food. In the Theban age the Ba is emphasized, 7.e, the 
soul that fails to pass the judgment. At any rate a progress in the ethical 
sense has taken place here. 


150 Culture Religions 


of the dead and escape the dangers of the other world, 
they become Osiris, that is, sharers in the nature of the 
one divinity. The dead then assume, like the deities, vari- 
ous animal forms and remain connected with the artificially 
preserved body. Those who do not pass the tribunal fall 
a prey to destruction. The Book of the Dead, preserved in 
many forms and very ancient in its substance, describes the 
dangers and trials of the journey in the other world and 
contains the magic formulas that offer deliverance and 
protection for this journey. Horus (Osiris) receives the 
soul as judge in the Hall of the Two Truths. Forty-two 
judges question it, each concerning one mortal sin. Thot 
writes the final verdict. The life beyond the grave re- 
ceives in this religion the greatest attention. On its ac- 
count the body is guarded from mutilation as a mummy. 
The great pile up pyramids to protect their graves. This 
interest in the other world has later taken a peculiar form 
in the cult of Serapis and strongly influenced ascetic mysti- 
cism and the hermits of early Christianity. 

The ideal of morality in many ancient inscriptions 
reminds one of /Jod and the Old Testament Proverés. 
Wrong and offence toward others, the overburdening of 
the laborer, slandering one’s own servants, deceit, usury, 
false weights, appear as chief sins in the tribunal of the 
dead. The deceased boasts: “I have oppressed no one, 
let no one starve, nor made any weep.” ‘I showed love 
to my father, reverence to my mother, and was just, to the 
joy of my brothers.” “TI have given bread to the hungry, 
water to the thirsty, clothes to the naked. I have received 
the rich and also the poor on the street. The gates were 
open to him coming from without.” Yet there is no lack 
also of sceptical and eudemonistic utterances. The skull 


Priestly Religion of the Hindoos 151 


at feasts was to warn: ‘“‘ Enjoy thyself and remember that 
no one takes his treasures with him.” The song of the 
“harper” urges to a light and sensual enjoyment of life, 
“for the day will come when thy voice will not be heard.” 
Just because the cult and the popular religion were un- 
touched by the loftier ideas of the esoterics, these ideas 
have played no part in the development of human religion. 
Still they had in them seeds of philosophy, asceticism, 
ethics, and science. But the deity who is at once the 
spirit and the body of the All could not become the living 
God of religion. 


16. Lhe Philosophical Priestly Religion of the Hindoos 


I. The peculiar religious mood of the Indo-Germanic 
nature religions, their strong emphasis of the kinship of 
the human and the divine, and their joyful pride in man 
over against the life of nature, led, in the priestly circles 
of India, to a religion that, having passed from a natu- 
ralistic to an idealistic pantheism, views the world as an 
unhappy illusion and the life of the spirit as the only 
reality. The popular religion and the ritual hold, it is 
true, to a mildly fantastic worship of nature, but one 
very uniquely determined by ascetic and pessimistic ideas. 
As early as the later parts of the Vedas there appear, in- 
stead of the simple hymns of prayer and praise that enlli- 
vened the sacrificial worship of the gods of nature, gloomy 
thoughts on the real essence of the phenomenal world. 
The poets ask: “On what did He stand when He sup- 
ported the world? Where are the highest places, where 
the deepest, where those in the middle, All-completer ?” 
“Was He who supported the six mighty spaces, when still 
unborn, the One?” They say: “All beings long to 


152 Culture Religions 


search for Him, far above this sky, this earth, even beyond 
the living gods. What first germ did the waters receive, 
in which the gods all appeared together? In the womb of 
the unborn lay the One, and all beings lay hidden there. 
Him who begot this ye will never know.” “The gods 
themselves came into being later. Who knows whence 
this great creationsprang?... The highest seer who is in 
the highest heaven knows it, —or perhaps even he knows 
it not.” They often conceive of the individual gods as 
identical with one another or as passing over into one an- 
other, as the case may be, so that a unitary divine life is 
assumed in all. ‘Wise poets represent the bird who is 
one, in their words, in many ways.” “They speak of 
Mitra, Varuna, Agni; again he is the heavenly bird 
Garutman; what is one, the sages name in various ways; 
they speak of Yama, Agni, Matarisvan.” “In the even- 
ing Agni becomes Varuna. He becomes Mitra when he 
rises in the morning. As Savitri he moves through the 
air. As Indra he gives warmth in the midst of the sky.” 
The belief in the “souls” dwelling with the gods, in their 
return, and in the cycle of existences, was doubtless old 
among the people. Also the idea that man in worship 
strengthens and nourishes the gods. To this cult, above 
all, has a personification of the ritual procedure as the 
real power over the gods, attached itself: oy Anite 
hearthfire, the warder-off of harmful powers, who comes 
as lightning from the sky and, when “begotten” by the 
priest according to the old sacred ritual, returns as sacrifi- 
cial flame to heaven, is the mediator between the godhead 
and man, the one who nourishes and makes possible the 
gods: “ Let thy body grow, All-artist, thou who growest 
through sacrifice; sacrifice to thyself, to the sky and the 


Priestly Religion of the Hindoos 153 


earth.” Beside him stand as his attendants Soma, Apris, 
Bharata, Ila, Svaha, Vak, that is, the elements of the sac- 
rificial rite. These ritual powers appear as the begetters 
of the gods (the Mass). And this deification of the cult 
culminates in Brahma, in prayer in its aspect of power 
over the gods, whose agents are the Brahmins (increasers). 

2. As long as the Aryans of India were a vigorous 
race of invaders fighting for existence, their religion, in 
spite of such elements, hardly passed the bounds of the 
ancient nature religion. The Indian heroes love battle, 
wealth, and enjoyment and pray for these. Neither the 
misery of existence nor gloomy reflections on sin and the 
consequences of guilt have dimmed their joy of life. Not 
till we come to the centuries in which the Upanishads and 
the Books of the Law! arose do we find the beginning 
of a really philosophical conception of religion. These 
show us the people divided into fixed castes. The Sudras, 
sprung from Brahma’s foot (perhaps non-Aryan), are ex- 
cluded from everything sacred, in contrast with the three 
“twice-born”’* castes of Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaicyas, 
that are born of Brahma’s mouth, arm, and loins. These 
alone have the right, and also the duty, of being initiated 
by study and meditation into the true nature of piety. By 
far the highest of these are the Brahmins. They are, 
through prayer, the masters of the gods, the sole author- 
ized teachers of the people, exalted far above kings and 
heroes. Their power lies in asceticism and knowledge of 
the Veda. The first part of their lives is a long period of 
stern study, in which they must make themselves masters 


1 Manuw’s; then Vishnuw’s, Vasishtha’s, Apastamba’s, Gautama’s. 
2 The enduing with the sacred girdle at the end of their apprenticeship 
marks the second birth. 


154 Culture Religions 


of the Veda. Their end, when they have seen the legal 
fulfilment of the ancestral cult assured by a son or grand- 
son, is withdrawal into complete solitude and heroic 
asceticism, in which they meditate on the mystery of 
being and free themselves from the phenomenal world. 
They are freed from all civic burdens. All honors are 
open to them. By their favor the gods dwell in heaven. 
They preserve the world by their prayers. ‘There are 
two kinds of gods, the gods in heaven and the gods 
among men, namely the Brahmins learned in the Veda. 
The world is in the hands of the gods, the gods in the 
hands of prayer, prayer in the hands of the Brahmins. So 
the Brahmins are our gods” (Manu’s Laws). The Vedas, 
from whose no longer understood texts the power of 
the Brahmins flows, are revered as increate, as Brahma’s 
- breath. And those learned in the Vedas and the Laws 
rule the people by the terrors of conscience. For every 
existence is the punishment or the reward of the preced- 
ing one. Man is the creature of his will. Every man 
brings with him, merely by his birth into a definite caste, 
his fate for this life as the result of his conduct in earlier 
existences. For evil deeds the man is born a mineral or veg- 
etable; for evil words, a beast; for evil thoughts, a man 
of a lower caste. Lofty virtue can lead to birth as citizen 
of the heaven of the gods; grave crime, to birth as a crea- 
ture in hell. By faithful fulfilment of duties and by under- 
going the sufferings of his caste, man can, under the 
guidance of the wise, earn the right to mount upward in 
a succeeding existence. But as long as the “journey ” 
lasts no one is at peace, no one is assured against sinking 
into the abyss of misery. The highest goal is not to be 
born again into this world, but to enter into Brahma. 


Priestly Religion of the FHlindoos 155 


Dreadful fates await even unconscious violations of law. 
Hence only the instructions and guidance of the learned 
Brahmins can save from misery. The Kshatriyas are the 
warriors and manage the state; the Vaicyas care for agricul- 
ture and trade. The Sudras are born to servitude; only work 
of the hands beseems them. Any personal contact with 
them pollutes the highest caste. The great moral laws of 
veracity, purity, self-control, honesty, and abstinence from 
intoxicating beverages and from the killing of living crea- 
tures (except for hospitality and for sacrifice) hold for all. 
Along with this the legal books contain an immense mass 
of regulations concerning food and ritual, burial of the 
dead and purity, and of ancient prescriptions for the 
people (eg. the prohibition against younger children 
marrying before the elder, etc.). The ideas of the old na- 
ture religion can often, it is true, be traced even in this 
developed form, as for instance in the exalted position of 
the head of a family, in the duty of ancestral worship, in 
the sanctity of the cow, in the expiatory virtue of planting 
trees and digging wells, in the ablutions and magic for- 
mulas by which guilt is atoned. But the old combative 
and joyous fashion of piety is changed into a gloomy and 
weary thing, and the old heroic gods are forgotten, though 
their names still are repeated mechanically at the altars. 
The piety of the people is immensely increased, but it ren- 
ders them unhappy, weary, longing for nothingness. The 
heroism of the ancient race of conquerors has become a 
heroic renunciation of the world that shrinks from no 
sacrifice. 

3. Inthe Upanishads (meditations of hermits) salvation 
from the evils of life is sought in meditation on the true 
nature of things, that is, in a spiritual sacrifice. The sage 


156 Culture Religions 


understands that all creatures exist in God alone. By thus 
grasping the unity of existence, all illusion and all sorrow 
vanish. Even Indra says: “I am spirit, thou art spirit, 
all things are spirit. What I am, the worshipper is; and 
what he is, I am.” 

For religious philosophy, therefore, the minor gods, 
even when ancient, are only beings that, by contempla- 
tion and sacrifice, have earned a happier lot than men; 
that can, however, also sink down again, while man can 
rise above them. It is beyond these gods that religion 
seeks the true nature of things. By the way of ritual, 
through Agni-Brahmanaspati, the god of ritual and prayer, 
it arrives at the spirit of prayer, the truth of the word, 
Brahma. In thought it grasps, amid the phenomenal 
world, real being (the Self), Atma, whose symbol is the 
syllable Om. But Brahma is Atma. Spirit, Self, ether, 
light, are one. In the lotus flower of the heart sits Brahma- 
Atma. The world is the unfolding of the “Self.” In 
measureless zeons, in ever new “ Kalpas” and new world- 
forms, the “Self” realizes itself creatively, and it is the 
law of piety and morality that supports the world. 
Vishnu, who is ever creating the world anew, is the 
personified power of religion itself. In Brahma lies the 
solution of the riddle of the world. The world is the de- 
velopment of Brahma; Brahma, the undeveloped world. 
In the world-egg lived, by his own power, Brahma, the 
ancestor of the universe. He has by thought, by willing 
to pass from unity to manifoldedness, brought forth the 
world. The farther it is removed from unity the worse is 
it. And the All,in its separation from the One, is unhappy 
and strives to get rid of the pain of existence by absorp- 
tion in the Ego and in the One. He who understands the 


Priestly Religion of the Hindoos 157 


true nature of things becomes free. Applied religious 
thought is what controls the world. But it is easy to see 
why neither the world-Brahma, nor the god-Brahma artifi- 
cially personified from it, had any vitality in the popular 
cult. 

4. Every man is the creature of his own will; no one can 
harm the Self; an iron law, that is at the same time the 
moral order of the world, forbids escape from the unhappy 
cycle of births. Whoever is born is sure to die; whoever 
dies, to be born again. But by grasping in mystic contem- 
plation the unity of one’s own being with the Self, one is 
delivered from the illusion of the world. Hence medita- 
tion on the Om (the essential nature of things) is the way 
of salvation. ‘When Indra did not understand the Self, 
the demons overcame him; when he learned it, he over- 
came them and won the primacy of the gods.” The Self 
penetrates all things, as salt does sea-water. ‘Om is the 
bow, Self the arrow, Brahma the target. He who hits be- 
comes one with Brahma.” He who understands the Self 
and says “I am he,” can no longer know desire. “ When 
he is freed from every lust of his heart, the mortal enters 
immortal even here into the Brahma.” But only on the 
basis of a firm resolve of the will and of a resolute, persist- 
ent asceticism is this contemplation possible. It does not 
succeed by the path of easy speculation. The feet on 
which the Upanishad stands are “ penance, renunciation, 
sacrifice.” The Self gives itself only to him who has 
turned from selfishness and desire. Such freedom from 
desire as is brought to full perfection in the life of the 
hermit is saving wisdom. This philosophy is, at bottom, 
the real content of Buddhism, and ought theoretically of 
itself to abolish the Vedas and the rights of the Brahmins. 


158 Culture Religions 


But, in fact, it lets both exist,-conceives of both as indis- 
pensable conditions of the process of redemption, and so 
has no popular power. The Buddhism that bursts these 
limits with prophetic genius, and reveals a Brahminism 
Kata mvedua to the ‘poor in spirit,’ is the executor and 
heir of this philosophy. 

5. The pantheistic mysticism of the Bhagavad-Gita, in 
which the incarnate Vishnu ! reveals “‘ monism,” is the most 
pleasing poetic expression of this philosophy.” It has most 
life in the twenty Vishnu brotherhoods, whereas the Siva 
and Sakti cults have kept the orgiastic character of a 
perhaps non-Aryan nature religion (begetting and anni- 
hilation). The conception of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva 
together, as Trimirti, is of modern origin (1400 4.pD.). In 
the various philosophical systems, however, that seek to 
interpret this religion, above all in the Vedanta® and 
Sankhya ‘ philosophies, lie ideas that in oriental form have 
influenced to a certain extent the course of modern oc- 
cidental philosophy down to Hegel, J. G. Fichte, Scho- 
penhauer, and v. Hartmann. An acosmic monism, with 


1 Krishna, Rama, Gopala. He has also entered on the poetic legacy of the 
Indra myth. 

2“ He who sees me everywhere and sees all in me, from him I never de- 
part nor does he depart from me.” “I myself am at once the source and the 
dissolution of the whole world. I am fragrance in the earth, and light in the 
fire, living in all living, renunciation in the renouncer. All this is good, to be 
sure, but I hold the wise man like myself.” ‘The highest sacrifice am I my- 
self here in the body, good mortal.” ‘The soul is its own friend, the soul 
also its own enemy. The soul is the friend of the man who conquers himself 
through her. But by friendship with the unspiritual he becomes his own 
enemy.” “ Whoever will honor any god by faith, him I always reward with 
this constant faith.’ Ardshuna says: “I see all the gods in thy body, God; 
and a band of various beings, Brahma the Lord sitting in the lotus cup.” 

3 Acosmic monism. 

4 Dualism of matter and spirit. 5 In all, six orthodox schools. 


The Ethical Poetic Religions 159 


its logical pessimistic view of phenomenal existence, stands 
before the mind in a consistent grandeur. But this phi- 
losophy lacks a God in whom man can understand and 
assert himself in his permanent personal significance in 
the world, a source of eternal life. And hence the recent 
attempts to develop a national religion on this soil, in place 
of Christianity, have no prospect of success. This appears 
in the course that the development of the Brahma-somaj 
(Society of God) has taken. Founded by Rammohan-Roy 
(1772-1833), on a conservative plan, with recognition of 
the Vedas and of caste, it seemed, under the leadership of 
Keschub Tsundra Sen (born 1838), to be casting off its 
Hindoo limitations and approaching Christianity. But in 
1878 a schism arose, not without fault on the part of its 
head, so that now a new (Sadharana) Brahma-somaj stands 
over against the adherents of the old one. The attempts to 
give new life to the religion of India on a purely national 
basis have hitherto been confined to this small circle 
(Bahadur Ragkundata Rao, Swami Vivekananda, Daja- 
nanda Sarasvati). 


17. Lhe Ethical Poetic Religions 


I. On the basis of the original character of the Aryan 
nature religions and their development among the Ger- 
manic peoples, poetry framed a conception that in many 
points rises above the plane of primitive religion. It is 
true that its monuments are very young, and perhaps in- 
fluenced by elements other than nature religion. The 
religious life that found expression in the cult of this 
variety of paganism was certainly of a totally different sort. 
But even in the Edda the old naturalistic popular religion 
underlies the whole. The struggle of the storm-god of 


160 Culture Religions 


the sky with the frost giants, the death of the spring sun 
on midsummer’s day, the union of the gods of light with 
the daughters of the giants (jétu), the magic runes, the 
resurrection of light at Yuletide, the bright and dark 
elves, the White Women and Walkyries, the birth of the 
world from the body of the giant Ymir, sprung of ice and 
fire, the escape of Odin by magic runes from the bonds of 
chaos (World Ash Tree), the kinship of gods and men, into 
whom they have breathed soul, mind, and blood, — all this 
comes from the old nature religion. Even the figures of 
the gods are of the old type. Not only Loki, Odin’s dark 
brother, but Odin himself, the storm-god, and Thor, the 
god of the lightning, have the traits of the fierce, passionate 
forces of a nature bound by no ethical law even as late as 
the poetry of the Edda. 

2. But in Odin, the ideal prince, the wise poet and in- 
ventor of runes, in Thor, the type of the bold peasant with 
his humor and valor, and above all in the bright Balder, 
we meet ethical figures, judged by the standards of ancient 
Germanic morality ; figures on which the Northman’s tide 
of enthusiastic and admiring love could expend itself. 
And to the old nature myth of the death and resurrection 
of light in the changes of the seasons is linked the great 
tragedy of the end and the renewal of the world. Guilt is 
the key to the ruin of the gods. In their story is found 
the first breach of faith. The gods deceived the giant 
architect that built their castle. The thirst for gold drove 
them to unjust war with the Wanen. Abusing Gunnléd’s 
love, Odin stole the mead of inspiration. Gold and culture 
destroyed innocence. And with the gods fell their world. 
Faithlessness and disloyalty gain the upper hand in the 
“age of the axe,” and doubt, laming the power of good, 


The Ethical Poetic Religions 161 


gnaws at the life of the world. Hence an age of conflict. 
Gods and good men, representing in spite of their sin the 
principle of order, still fight the powers of evil, the 
accursed brood of Loki, the powers of the consuming flame 
and of the all-devouring sea (serpent of Midgard). But 
the struggle draws to a close. Tyr’s right hand is already 
maimed, Freyr’s sword lost, and the darling of the gods, 
the bright Balder, is sent to the realm of shades by the 
mistletoe arrow of his blind brother Hodr. Bound by the 
gods, Loki shakes the earth with an earthquake. The 
Midgard serpent seeks the land. The Sons of Fire of 
Muspelheim are ready to throw flames into the world. 
Eternal justice, reigning over men and gods, hurls the 
fallen world into purifying fire, fanned by the fierce forces 
of nature that destroy all life. The last great combat is 
fought, in which the gods and just men (the Einherjar) 
fall fighting against the powers of evil. But out of the 
conflagration of the world (Ragnarok) proceeds a new and 
transfigured one. The earth rises out of the sea, green 
and fair, and on it grain grows unsown. Odin appears 
again with Vali and Vidharr. Balder comes back recon- 
ciled to Hodr. Thor’s sons, Modhi and Magni (Courage 
and Power), bring back his hammer. Men, hidden in the 
World-tree, live with the gods. ‘“ Lif and Lifthrasir, morn- 
ing dew is all their food; with them begins a new race.” 
Thus in this religion, as in the Persian, men feel them- 
selves called on to stand by the gods of light and to be 
renewed with them after expiation of their guilt. And 
over the life of nature and its vanity rules a stern and holy 
law that hurries the stained world to its grave. This reli- 
gion lifts men above the life and the death of nature. 
But still it has no real liberating power. The gods are, 
M 


162 Culture Religions 


it is true, inspiring ideals for the soul of the northern war- 
rior. But they are not world-conquering powers of good. 
They are contingent, and are themselves involved in the 
transformations of nature. And the Last and Highest 
stands above and beyond them, as above men. Hence the 
fundamental condition for any genuine religion is lacking. 
Moreover, the whole development is at bottom artificial 
and has never practically overcome the old non-ethical 
rudeness of nature religion. 

3. Ina more perfect form and one of far greater signifi- 
cance for the spiritual history of the world, the poetic and 
philosophic powers of the Hellenic race created a cycle 
of religious types outside those local cults of popular re- 
ligion that are for us of no significance; acycle that, based 
on Homer and Hesiod and proclaimed by Pindar, Aéschy- 
lus, and Sophocles as its prophets, took form in the statues 
of Phidias and Praxiteles, was spiritualized by the masters 
of thought beginning with Socrates and Plato, and that 
even to-day influences our civilization powerfully. Over the 
gods of the cults and the myths reigns an eternal order, 
the zesthetic and ethical law of harmony and of measure, 
before which the insolent forces of nature, the Titans, 
must sink into the realm of shades, and the arrogant races 
of Tantalus and Laius are brought to the bar. In Her- 
acles the figure typical of human struggle for the good 
of the world is elevated to the ranks of the gods. In the 
mirror of poetry the local deities are gathered into one ad- 
mirably composed group of gods, of which many pass 
into heroic legend as demigods and heroes. The divine 
is exhibited in their several figures, like light in the col- 
ors of the spectrum, as the law of a harmony and a beauty 
that are good in themselves. The stern ethical vigor of the 


The Ethical Poetic Religions 163 


northern religion appears here, it is true, in a weakened 
form. But the chief figures of this group of deities, 
created by the most esthetically gifted race of antiquity, 
are sublime and noble enough. Zeus, as Pindar and 
Sophocles sang him and as Phidias moulded him, the 
father of the world at whose side stand Themis and Metis, 
and who obeys the Moira from an inner necessity, and 
beside him Athene, Apollo, Asclepius, and the foam-born 
goddess of beauty, are the ruling figures of this fair world. 
The wisdom of Delphi proclaimed them the most effectu- 
ally; the great festivals, above all that at Olympia, as the 
presentation and consecration of physical and mental 
vigor and beauty, were their noblest cult, in which the old 
character of worship of the dead was wholly forgotten. 
In Achilles and Odysseus poetry created the ideal man. 
The old nature spirits are transformed into Graces and 
Muses, or into guardians of morals and piety, as Erinyes 
and Eumenides. Sophocles refers to the “unwritten” 
ordinances of the gods. Pindar and Aéschylus point out to 
human vfpis that the life of mortals is a dream, a smoke, 
a shade. And in countless forms is pictured the victory 
of noble harmony over the rude forces of nature. Hector, 
who “knows but one omen, to save his country,” and 
Antigone, who declares that she lives “not to share 
hatred, but to share love,’ can vanish from the spiritual 
possessions of civilized man as little as can the figure of 
Prometheus, who for the sake of man bears the wrath of 
the gods, or the Dorian hero Heracles, who fights the 
fierce forces of evil, the happy hero who ascends among 
the gods. The tragic pictures of unrestrained passion 
— Niobe amid the fearful ruin of the happiness of which 
she has been too proud, the demonic Medea, the house of 


164 Culture Religions 


Atreus, self-destroyed — have even to-day through their 
poetic veil true religious power, And the idealistic philos- 
ophy of Plato and the Stoics, although no mere child of 
this religion, shows what a power for evolving thought and 
faith slumbered in the intellectual world of the Greeks. 

4. But the old nature deities of the Aryans were by 
themselves inadequate for the pure expression of the 
beautiful and good. The fierce lust and the rage of the 
forces of nature, transferred to figures conceived of as 
ethical and personal, falsified the picture of the good and 
fair and had a demoralizing effect on the fancy of the 
people. With the sublime figure of the father of the gods 
at whose frown Olympus trembled is blended the insati- 
able passion for love and enjoyment of primitive life. 
And the god of light, who drives the chaotic powers of 
night from which he is sprung back into their gloomy 
realm, becomes the rebellious son who hurls his father into 
Tartarus. The patient hero of virtue, Heracles, is still the 
nature deity, subject to unbridled desires and destroying 
rage. The goddess of beauty and charm is at the same 
time the symbol of unbridled lust and sensual pleasure. 
Not only the Christian apologists have felt this and made 
it the theme of their mockery; Plato too (Aepudblic) has 
with solemn earnestness bade keep this motley world of 
gods afar from his ideal world. And the satire of the 
poets from Aristophanes to Lucian shows how little power 
these divinities had to reénforce true religion. Mere 
sesthetic feeling cannot rouse the sleeping conscience nor 
heal the sick one. The divine was revealed to the Greeks 
as beauty, but not as a Holy Spirit and a power of pardon 
and newness of life. To such deities a noble human soul 
could neither surrender itself nor gain from them power 


Lhe Ethical Poetic Religions 165 


over the world. The personal element in the tales of the 
deities and their strongly individualized statues made all 
really religious monotheism impossible. And when the 
later Stoics and then Neoplatonism tried to transform 
these deities into powers serving the one great God,! this 
artificial purification was in fact an abolition of the old 
religion, and too little popular and too tardy to be able 
to set loose really new religious forces. All that is of 
permanent worth for the world of human thought in the 
philosophy of the Greeks is hostile to and destructive of 
popular religion; it is born, not of religious power, but 
of theoretical interest in the riddle of existence. The 
philosophy of the Greeks has created physics (metaphysics, 
ontology), ethics, and logic, but has founded no religion. 
The Greek spirit has thereforé had an essentially dis- 
solvent and irreligious effect on the nations that came 
under its influence. The ethics of Greece transcends, it is 
true, the slavish and legal type of morality in its effort 
after a beautiful and harmonious development. But it is 
at the price of the categorical character that true religious 
ethics possesses. Beautiful moderation is a very elastic 
limit for evil. The religious feeling of the Greeks shrank 
from Titanic arrogance and barbaric excess. But springs 
of pity for others’ woe, of sympathy with poverty and 
weakness, of recognition of the dignity of man even in the 
barbarian, or of inward purity, have not flowed from this 
fair world of gods. True love, real repentance, condem- 
nation of the flesh, and the vital longing for redemption find 
in itno support. For the wounds and pains of life there is 
here a veil, but no medicine. The best morality in Greece 


1 Xenophanes, Anaxagoras, Metrodorus, Prodicus, Epicharmus, show the 
beginnings of such a reinterpretation. Euhemerus humanizes the gods, 


166 Culture Religions 


has arisen outside of religion or in opposition to it (Plato 
to the Stoics). Hence early Christianity felt itself the foe 
of Greek religion and did not see that one side of the reve- 
lation of the divine has nevertheless found imperishable 
expression in the world of thought and fancy of the 
Olympian religion. The Christianity of the present can 
understand and appreciate the immense significance of the 
Greek spirit, even the religious, for human progress. We 
see that it was only through contact with the Greek spirit 
and Greek culture that the religious spirit of the Hebrews 
became capable of producing a universal religion for the 
civilized races; that “ Japhet must dwell in the tents of 
Shem.” But primitive Christianity could not feel so. As 
religion the world of the Greek gods was doomed to 
destruction, to live in art. The Greek world itself, even 
before it turned to Christianity, turned away dissatisfied 
from the gods of Olympus and sought satisfaction in mys- 
teries and foreign cults. Alongside of the mysteries of 
Eleusis, the secret cults of Mithras and of Isis flourished 
in the world of Greek and Roman civilization. Or it 
turned with scorn and unbelief from popular faith, and 
sought a substitute in spheres of philosophic thought that 
were not, as in India, children of religion, but born of 
opposition to it. 


18. Ethical State Religions 


1. The intertwining of religion with the large interests 
of society and the state is common to all culture religions, 
just as all primitive religions are based on the interests of 
the family and the clan. But of all Occidental races the 
Romans have, in accordance with their instinct for purpose 
and order, most completely developed the religion proper 


Ethical State Religions 167 


of their realm in this direction, starting from the nature 
cults of Italy which survived among the common people. 
The peculiar piety on which Rome’s greatness rested, as 
even its Greek admirers justly said, is essentially identical 
with the reverence for law and custom, with the discipline 
and capacity for devotion, that constituted the core of 
Roman civic virtue. Organized worship was a part of the 
constitution of the state. Even penal law had a religious 
coloring (sacer esto). Conscientious and reverent observ- 
ance of the dues of the deity, shrinking from no sacrifice, 
but without zesthetic or theological interests and of no 
emotional depth, characterizes the veligio of the best age 
of Rome.} 

2. The countless divinities of this religion corresponded 
to the various forces on which the physical and historical 
prosperity of a land is built or by which it can be en- 
dangered. Only a few, like Varro, attempted any actual 
survey of this swarm of deities. Figures like Salus, 
Victoria, Honos, Virtus, Bonus Eventus, Clementia, Fides, 
Pax, Libertas, Fortuna, Concordia, Pudicitia, had their 
cults and theirshrines. But also powers like Pavor, Pallor, 
Febris, Bellona, etc. Alongside of these the noble fam- 
ilies honored in their ancestors the greatness of their 
houses. The state did not intrude on this right nor on the 
religious functions of the curi@, etc., but it supervised 
them through the pontifices. Rome’s own greatness was 
seen and adored in Jupiter optimus maximus rex, and the 
dignity of woman on which the prosperity of society rests 
in Juno. When the state became a monarchy, the genius 
of the emperor naturally represented the divinity of Rome 
to which subject nations must do homage. To the welfare 


1 Dis te minorem quod geris imperas (Horace). s 


168 Culture Religions 


of Rome were directed the ancient punctilious rites, fes- 
tivals, and spectacles. To it heroes sacrificed themselves 
by voluntary death. In order to doom the foe to the in- 
fernal powers, Curtius and the Decii dedicated themselves 
to the gods of the dead. And heroic legend and mythol- 
ogy were summed up in the glorification of the origin and 
the future of Rome. Thus here love of country and 
legality coincided with religion and produced a people of 
incomparable excellence and endurance. In its character 
of universal empire Rome’s devotion tolerated also foreign 
cults. A later age blended, in poetry and mythology, the 
Roman religion with the much-admired world of Greek 
gods. But Greek genius had a dissolvent effect on this 
inartistic race. Rome’s own religion was well adapted to 
strengthen civic feeling and valor; but it was also inextri- 
cably bound up with all the horrors of conquest and with 
all the brutal egotism of a conquering despotism. It 
perished with the rule of Rome. But its spirit descended 
to the papal church. 

3. In the remote East, on the basis of the Turanian 
nature religion of spirits, the union of religion and civic 
life was wrought out in a still more logical fashion by 
Cong-tse (Confucius), who, not as prophet or philosopher 
or poet, but as practical rationalistic teacher, statesman, 
and collector of ancient popular wisdom, brought what 
the peculiar character of the Chinese people and state had 
long been aiming at to completion (551-478 B.c.). Al- 
though apotheosized, his figure stands out pretty distinctly 
in history. He saw in popular wisdom and its ancient 
monuments (Kings),! above all in the wisdom of the Prince 

1 Yi-King, Shu-King (books of history partially destroyed in 213), Shi- 


King (songs), Li-Chi (rites), Tchun-tsieu, — Hsiao-King (filial duties, by 
Cong-tse himself ?). 


Lithical State Religions 169 


of Chau (Wan dynasty), the expression of the same un- 
swerving reason that the laws of nature, and above all of 
the sky, reveal. The golden mean, the calm of the law- 
abiding sage, is for him the ideal. In its fidelity to ancient 
customs, the life of the people is to be the reflection of 
this eternal reason. If such is not the case, relaxation 
of law shows itself even in nature in catastrophes and 
physical ills. Cong-tse in his innermost being was a mor- 
alistic, non-religious, and unphilosophical nature. He says: 
“It is a long time since I prayed.” And he confesses: 
‘“‘T do not know life ; how can I, then, know death?” And 
he has stamped these traits on the piety of his race. Fur- 
thermore, he is firmly convinced that right instruction and 
good laws can infallibly and in a short time make man 
virtuous and the state happy. 

4. Originally Heaven was worshipped in China as the 
greatest among the many nature spirits adored in the 
popular cult. It was the Great Emperor (Shang-ti). And 
in external form it has remained so ever since Cong-tse. 
Cong-tse takes in every way the point of view of the 
conservative Chinaman. But Heaven, which as late as 
the Shu-King was a living, acting, personal being, is no 
longer looked on as personal. The rationality of the 
world-order is seen in it. It has no voice and no in- 
clination toward or from individuals. It is revealed in 
the phenomena of nature. Heaven, earth, and man must 
be in accord, else the order of the world is overthrown. 
But man alone stands free and self-conscious over against 
this order. He has the world-reason (¢a0) in his soul. He 
is also alone responsible for this order not being disturbed. 
By nature he is good, but he must assert the good dis- 
position of his reason over against obscurations and temp- 


170 Culture Religions 


tations. To this end the state and penal laws can and 
must work. They are the reflection of the order of 
Heaven. The emperor is the Son of Heaven. His office 
is intrusted to him by Heaven. The state, especially the 
emperor, is hence responsible that law and order be re- 
stored. If physical ills show that the harmony of the world 
is disturbed, the emperor must regard himself as guilty and 
do penance. The ways of Heaven are not unchangeable. 
Its fates can be averted, but not what one has brought on 
himself. The omnipotence of the state rests on its agree- 
ment with the eternal ordinances of reason, not on indi- 
vidual caprice. Even revolt may be a duty. For Heaven 
has no predilection for any special dynasty, but for right 
and order. If the emperor transgresses the great ordi- 
nances of the state, the officials must oppose him in the 
name of reason. 

5. The order of nature enters into society in omens and 
dreams, in prodigies and natural phenomena, above all in 
the calendar. Agriculture is universal reason applied to 
the treatment of nature, and hence the most sacred pro- 
fession, in which even the emperor takes part by guiding 
the plough, and the empress by spinning silk. New Year’s 
Day is the greatest festival. This originally living cult 
has faded to mere symbols (sacrifice of gilt paper), and the 
old spirits of nature survive now only in the fancy of the 
people. Only the worship of ancestors, especially that of 
the imperial ancestors, who are looked on as spiritual 
rulers, has preserved an inextinguishable vigor, and in 
ethics filial piety is the most striking and the most pleas- 
ing trait. Marriages are concluded and courts are held 
before the ancestors. Unfilial children are regarded as 
more detestable than great criminals. On the death of 


Ethical State Religions 171 


parents, the period of mourning lasts twenty-five months.! 
A high official superintends ceremonies. Instead of priests 
there are teachers ; instead of temples, memorials of virtue; 
instead of prayers, ascetic practices and penance, homage 
to the order of the state, and execution of penal law. The 
fundamental trait in morals is honesty and observance of 
law. Gentleness, patience, peaceableness, and reasonable- 
ness are the chief virtues of private life. Music is consid- 
ered the best means of attuning the soul to the harmony 
of the heavenly order and of improving wayward hearts. 
Hence Cong-tse laid the greatest emphasis on the cultiva- 
tion of the good “old” music in opposition to musical 
innovators. Hence there rules in China a moral ration- 
alism, with no living consciousness of God,—one put at 
the service of the bureaucratic state. This rationalism 
has come to a peaceful, and in some degree friendly, un- 
derstanding with Buddhism, which has been stripped of its 
original brilliant paradox. The two never come in con- 
flict. The dreams of Jacobin sentimentality of 1794 are 
here realized in a history covering thousands of years. 
But religion as such is a faded wraith. All its peculiar 
functions have become forms that have lost their original 
life. The logical state religion is but the richly adorned 
grave of religious life. It can end only in omnipotence of 
the state, in lifeless ceremonies, and in the dismal tedium 
of a commonplace rationalism. The classic philosophy of 
the Chinese, Taoism (Laotse), has no independent signifi- 
cance for the history of religion. 


1 Hence, the position of the present empress-mother is entirely normal 
from the Chinese point of view. 


PARTI tPROPH ET Rh oiGlONS 
(z) On Aryan Sor 


19. Lhe Reformation of the Aryan Religion of Light 
(Dualism) 


I. NEITHER priestly philosophers nor poets nor states- 
men have been able to guide religion toward its true devel- 
opment. Only when it calls forth in souls endowed with 
religious genius so powerful and unique a sense of its 
reality that their religious life takes that of others captive 
and carries it on with it toward a goal, can religion perfect 
itself. Where that happens we speak of prophet religions. 
And we do not primarily inquire whether this sense of the 
divine is a pure and true revelation. The main thing is, 
that such religions spring from overwhelming religious 
experiences of personalities endowed with religious genius. 
In them the founders always constitute, directly or indi- 
rectly, the main content of the religion, because the way in 
which they experience the divine is decisive for the com- 
munity. 

Now it is true that very different views may be held 
concerning the limits of the right to this designation. 
Whether the religion of the Avesta is really a prophet 
religion or only a culture religion developed by the priests, 
and how far an historical Zarathustra is essential to it, is 
very dubious. And in the same way Buddha can be looked 
on as originally only one of the circle of philosophical 


172 


Reformation of the Aryan Religion of Light 173 


ascetics who developed Brahminism. So that perhaps 
the term “ prophet religion” ought to be limited to Semitic 
soil, where it unquestionably belongs to the Old Testament 
religion and to Islam. But, nevertheless, the Persians have 
had a consciousness of God sharply marked off from the 
piety of their fellow-clansmen, and have traced it back to 
the personality of Zarathustra. And Buddha has, in fact, 
influenced the piety of millions by the peculiar religious 
life of his personality. Hence it may be permissible to 
characterize these religions of Aryan origin also as prophet 
religions, even though we recognize fully their difference 
from the Semitic prophet religions. 

2. The sacred literature of the Persians was not edited 
until the age of Sassanides, when it was increased by 
younger additions. But if it is compared with the inscrip- 
tions of the Persian kings, with Greek statements,! and the 
younger material with the older,? we get a pretty distinct 
impression of this religion. It has plainly not been every- 
where the same as the national religion that flourished 
under the first Persian kings. At least it would be then 
unintelligible that Cyrus should have confessed himself 
the adorer of the gods of Babylon, or condemned Crcesus 
to death by fire, or that Darius in his inscriptions assumed 
a burial of the dead. The two forms were, however, un- 
questionably very closely akin. But the real Avesta reli- 


1 Herodotus, Pausanias, Plutarch. (Theopompus. ) 

2 The sacrificial hymns (Yacnas), of which the five Gathas are the oldest, 
the Vendidad (laws and myths, in part very ancient), and the Vispered, form 
the part cast in the ancient tongue. This tongue is not identical with old 
Persian proper, but a separate dialect. Of the books in the later Persian dia- 
lect (Pahlevi) by far the most important is the Bundehesh, which, on compari- 
son with the older works and with Greek reports, proves to be a very faithful 
reproduction of the ancient religious documents. 


174 Prophet Religions 


gion was probably founded by the non-Persian Magi, and 
came from Media. Raghae is the ancient sacred mountain 
of the successors of Zarathustra. It was first generally in- 
troduced by Artaxerxes Longimanus, and at the restoration 
of the Sassanides became the state religion, even though 
the Arsacide, Vologoses I, Nero’s contemporary, was 
among its confessors. It goes back to Zarathustra, the 
friend of King Gustasp (Hystaspes), 1000 B.c. And since 
Zarathustra appears even in the Gathas as a real human 
figure, the historicity of this tradition is probable. In the 
later writings he is, it is true, a wholly divine being, the 
helper of Ahuramazda, and his revelation. Sacrifices 
were made to his genius. The evil spirit flees at his magic 
words.} 

3. Its origin was probably not due to conscious opposition 
to the old Aryan nature religion that was turning into 
Brahminism. On the contrary, it appears as a further 
development and reformation of this, while retaining the 
greater part of the existing material. The religious forms 
and expressions of ancient India recur in large numbers, 
as for instance, Yama-Yimi, Soma-Haoma, Vritahan-Vere- 
thragna, Mithras, Agni, Varuna. So also the sacred produc- 
tion of fire from the “wood” by friction, the ritual use of 
the sacred girdle and the holy boughs, of bundles of grass, 
of cow urine, etc. And if in the use of the name Asura as 
divine name, and of Daeva for evil spirits, there seems at 
first glance to lie a clear opposition to Hindoo thought, 
this arises only from the later Hindoo use. In ancient 
times, even by the Hindoos, the word Daéva was used in- 
differently (= da/uwv) and Asura was a divine name. The 
further development may have taken place gradually in 


1 Yacna, 9,12. WVendidad, 19. 


Reformation of the Aryan Religion of Light 175 


priestly circles. But probably some creative religious 
genius has been the determining factor; for what the Per- 
sian religion expresses far transcends the thought of other 
priestly religions. In it the nature deities became the 
spirit army of the great light-god who is the good. God’s 
attributes were transformed into living forces that work 
redemption in the soul. Heaven and hell took on a 
spiritual character. In short, the nature religion, with its 
countless deities, became the religion of the one good light- 
god, who reveals himself in all the forces of life, and comes 
off victor in the struggle with his opponents. Piety 
became the devotion of the soul to the good, to help build 
the realm of the good. And it was not a question of ethi- 
cal philosophic devotion to a self-chosen ideal, but of 
believing religious love for the personal world-ruling good. 

4. God, in the religious sense, is here One, Ahuramazda, 
the ancient god of the bright sky. Around him stand 
the seven spirits of good (Amesha-Cpentas), his first crea- 
tion.’ Although the popular cult might appeal to them 
by the ancient names, they are nevertheless no longer 
gods alongside of the one God. The latter has created 
them, as he has all good. He then created first of all 
man for good thoughts, words, and works, then the ele- 
ments (fire, water, earth), that hence are to be held sacred, 
the wholesome trees, and the good beasts. Among these, 
alongside of the cow that has ancient sanctity among the 
Aryans, stands out with special prominence the dog, per- 
haps on the basis of ancient mythical conceptions of the 
“dogs of the storm-god,” but also as the friend of shep- 
herds and hunters. His injury is punished almost more 


1Good Thoughts, Sanctity, Lordship, Humility, Health, Obedience, 
Purity. 


176 Prophet Religions 


severely than that of men! He is the guardian of the 
dead against demons and the sentry on the bridge of im- 
mortality. In this direction religion sees in the world the 
pure revelation of God. But the world of reality is a 
world of conflict, not merely of conflict in nature in the 
sense of the old Aryan religion, but also of the moral conflict 
of good-light-life with evil-darkness-death. And this con- 
flict the Avesta conceives of as one involved in the original 
nature of things. Over against the good God there exists the 
destructive spirit of negation (Angré Mainyus), also eternal. 
For the attempt to deduce both principles from a higher 
unity, from “eternal time” (Zrvan Akarana), is the specu- 
lation of a later generation. The destructive spirit has _ 
existed from the beginning alongside the life-giving one, 
as Loki beside Odin, Set beside Osiris. The aboriginal 
ideas of nature religion are here everywhere in evidence, 
especially the Aryan conception of the old “cloud and 
ocean serpent.” Nature exists only in the conflict of 
aboriginal powers. The evil spirit has also his army of 
evil spirits (Daeva and Drujas*) that grow by sin and sick- 
ness. Of them spring the noxious beasts? and plants and 
the ills of life. Above all, death and deceit are his ele- 
ment. Not to serve him and his spirits, to fight them by 
destruction of their works, is the chief religious duty of 
the ‘‘Mazda-Yagnas.” Thus religion is, to be sure, unable 
to rise above irreconcilable elements of nature to the con- 
ception of a God who is absolute master of the world. 
But only to the One, nevertheless, is homage paid. And 


1 Singular is the exaggerated position of the “ water-dog,” the beaver. 
The cock, too, is rated very high. 

2 Winter, Deceit, Anger, Lies, Poverty, Darkness, Lust, Pride, Contempt, 
Sickness, etc. 

3 Snakes, flies, scorpions, vermin, etc. 


Reformation of the Aryan Religion of Light 177 


in eschatology the good God is looked on as victor over the 
evil one. 

5. The ethical and the natural are not yet clearly dis- 
tinguished in this religion. As important as moral duty, 
whose heart is truthfulness, are countless ordinances that 
belong to the sphere of nature and have no connection at 
all with the inner life. And both in the practice of the 
people and in the sacred books, the ceremonial elements 
quite outweigh the moral ones. An endless succession of 
purifications, washings, and magic formulas fills the Avesta. 
The care of the “good” beasts and plants and the exter- 
mination of the “evil” ones appear as chief merits. Care- 
ful avoidance of all defilement of the elements by anything 
impure, above all by anything “dead” that has fallen a 
prey to the powers of destruction, forms an essential part 
of piety and leads (e.g.) to the well-known custom of giv- 
ing the dead a prey to birds in the “ towers of silence,” a 
custom that is still observed by the Parsees. Further- 
more, the religious community is a physically limited one. 
Iran is “the first created land” ; Turan, the land given over 
to the evil one. At the same time the CUO sspirits.. 
opens the way for polytheism. The Mithras cult, with its 
mysteries and the worship of Anahita, have made the pop- 
ular religion since Artaxerxes Longimanus more and more 
like the Asiatic nature religions. And the spiritual God is 
still held and limited by the bonds of nature (dualistic). 
Hence the path to God leads essentially through natural 
forms, and the means of serving him rightly consist, not 
only of morality and piety, but chiefly of sacred formulas 
that have power over the evil one, and of sacrifices, with- 
out which God becomes weak. Ancient lyric and liturgi- 
cal formulas, such as the Aschem Voh? and the Gatha 

N 


178 Prophet Religions 


Ahuna Vairya (mostly only panegyrics of the good and 
of purity), appear as victorious spells over the evil forces 
approved in early times and used by Zarathustra. Strange 
rites of purification taken over from the old nature religion 
maintain themselves with indestructible vigor (cow urine). 
And the old Aryan view of the world lives on in a motley 
world of myth. The sacred hymns sing of the heav- 
enly waters that flow from Hukairyo into the lake of 
Vouru-Kasha, and of Mithras, who dashes the Daeva in 
pieces with his club. The cosmological tales of the Bun- 
dehesh have plainly arisen from the ancient Aryan ones. 
In six works (in a year) the world was created. In “ Para- 
dise’’ stands the tree of immortality, Gaokerena, the tree 
of the white Haoma. By it dwell Mashya and Mashyana, 
the first man and woman. In the sky-ocean, Vouru- 
Kasha, grows the tree All-seed. The bull represents 
the fructifying rain. The cloud-snake is the symbol of 
the evil principle that is hostile to life. 

6. Most purely religious is the eschatology and the 
philosophy of history of the Parsees, concerning which, 
however, we possess only secondary sources out of the age 
of the Sassanides. The first period of the world (three 
thousand years) was a golden age. Evil was bound by 
the spell Ahuna Vairya. Man (Yima) was happy. In the 
second period Ahriman raised himself one-third of the 
height of the sky, descended to earth as a serpent, and 
seduced men to falsehood and to worship of the Daeva, by 
which sensuality gained control over them. Yima would 
not preach the law and fell by deceit; and then began the 
struggle between the powers of evil and the revealers 
of Ormuzd, Thraétona, Karegagpa, and the greatest 
and most victorious of them, Zarathustra. By him the 


Buddha 179 


victory of the good was won in principle. The last age 
will come when Ormuzd shall triumph, when, miraculously 
born of the seed of Zarathustra hidden in Lake Kasdwa, 
the deliverer (Sosyosh, Caoshyang¢) shall appear, when the 
old dragon shall be destroyed and the world purified. 
Meanwhile individual men come at death, escorted by 
their good or evil deeds, to Paradise or to the penalties of 
hell. The good man’s soul lingers three days by the head 
of the corpse and enjoys there as much delight as all the 
living together. Then it passes over the mountains of 
Hara and the Chinvat bridge, by good thoughts, words, 
and works, to the eternal light. In the fields of Paradise 
it is met by a charming maiden, who says: “TI am thy life, 
thy good deeds.” The souls of the wicked experience the 
opposite of all this. 


20. Buddha. The Prophet's Reformation of the Brahmintc 
Priestly Religion (Pessimism) 


I. As an historical personality, Buddha has doubtless 
resembled the other teachers and ascetics whom the 
priestly religion of India has produced in the most various 
forms, and seems in no way to have stood in sharp Opposi- 
tion to the recognized sages of his age. His doctrine 
assumes a metaphysic and a mythology such as had long 
existed on Indian soil. But he was distinguished from the 
other sages of India by one of those “ great thoughts that 
spring from the heart.” He has, in fact, by the moral and 
religious genius of his personality, burst the limits of the 
older religion and pronounced the final verdict on the 
Aryan nature religion. The nature deities, possessing no 
real power over the world, cease for him to have any signifi- 
cance for religion, and the human spirit that understands 


180 Prophet Religions 


its own true being becomes lord of the world and of the 
gods. The founder of the Jainas must have been most 
nearly akin to him. 

2. Buddha and his life are known to us only in legends, 
in which he is already an object of worship and a 
miraculous being. According to the later legend, he is 
living, after having blamelessly completed countless lives, 
in the heaven of the gods, freed from the unhappy cycles 
of existences. Out of redeeming love he is once more 
born as prince.2 His birthis miraculous. Prophecy greets 
the new-born child and promises that he shall be a ruler of 
the world or its deliverer. In order that the former lot 
may be his, he is bred in splendor and happiness and 
guarded from all knowledge of human misery. Then he 
accidentally meets Old Age, Sickness, and Death, who 
reveal to him the inevitable woe of existence, and he sees 
in a hermit the victory over the phenomenal world. The 
spirit of his calling comes upon him and drives him from 
his father’s house. He cuts off his princely locks and 
exchanges his royal robe for a beggar's cloaki. Ehusiae 
leaves parents, wife, and child and seeks the solution of 
the riddle of the misery of existence. First he tests the 
wisdom of the sages and the renunciation of the ascetic. 
But he finds no salvation for the world there. The truth 
dawns on him when he has renounced the old ways and 
overcome the severest temptations. Under the sacred 
Bo-tree he withstands the last and mightiest assault of the 
tempter (Mara), who tries to induce him selfishly to win 


1 Lalita-Vistara, Buddh. Sutr. xi. 46. (Almost like the embodiment of a 
nature myth.) 

2 Shuddhodana of Kapilavasttha and Maya are his parents. His name is 
Siddhartha; later, as preacher, Gautama; as ascetic, Sakhya Muni; as illumi- 
nator, Buddha. 


Buddha 181 


deliverance from existence for himself alone. Mara’s 
bolts, before which the gods flee, fall like rose leaves at 
his feet. He recognizes himself in all the forms of 
existence that he has passed through. So he becomes 
enlightened (Buddha) and the preacher of redemption. 
According to the older tales he appears in northeastern 
India as teacher of wisdom, and collects around him, with- 
out strife with other teachers, and with no claim of mira- 
cles, a society of monks, and in advanced age, probably 
between 480 and 460 B.c., dies a natural death. His 
doctrine became the ruling religion through Acoka, the 
grandson of Chandraguptas (256 B.c.). In India proper 
it vanished in the seventh century A.D., before the restora- 
tion of Brahminism and the Moslem conquest. In Ceylon, 
Further India, Thibet, China, Japan, it still reigns, although 
much mingled with other religions and not very vigorous. 
Its canon (Tripitaka) of Vinaya, Dhamma, Abidhamma 
(rites, morals, metaphysics) has come down in many lan- 
guages. The northern, written in Pali, is the most valua- 
ble. Genuine old memories are probably contained only 
in the Sutras of the Dhammapada. Everywhere now 
Buddha is the centre of the cult. The preacher of athe- 
ism has become a god. His relics form the most sacred 
possessions of Buddhist piety. In the temples stands his 
statue, with an expression of gentle happiness on its fea- 
tures. The countless “gods” of popular fancy humbly 
encircle the figure of the saviour of the world. The rites 
are essentially a panegyric of his virtue and a proclamation 
of his gospel. 

3. Buddhism, like the wisdom of the Brahmins, seeks 
liberation from the unhappy cycle of the phenomenal 
world, whose motive power is the law of recompense. 


182 Prophet Religions 


And its view of the world differs only at certain points 
from that of the Sankhya philosophy. The fundamental 
idea of Buddhistic philosophy is not being, but becoming. 
But whereas, according to Brahministic teaching, redemp- 
tion is possible only by ascent within the castes, in Buddhism 
it becomes possible for every being that understands its 
true welfare. By this the castes are abolished from within, 
without Buddha, as it seems, having actually opposed and 
rejected them. “As the four rivers on falling into the 
Ganges lose their names as soon as their waters are min- 
gled with the sacred stream, so all who believe in Buddha 
cease to be Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaicgyas, Sudras.” And 
whereas an aristocratic secret lore (knowledge of the Veda) 
and an asceticism impossible to the common man seem to 
the Brahmins the sole means of deliverance (épya and 
yvaous), here faith in a simple gospel intelligible to every 
child saves (the four Truths)! By this the mysteries of 
Vedic lore and the pride in secret esoteric knowledge is 
banished from religion forever. Buddhism can take its 
place as a world religion. 

4. The four Truths are: (1) Pain is the necessary accom- 
paniment of every existence; for there is no being, but 
only becoming (Samsara). Everything is and is not, is at 
once eternal and non-existent. Change is eternal.2 From 
heaven to hell all is transitory, and hence comes woe. 
There is no happiness but calm. (2) Pain arises from the 
impulse to existence, from passion, desire for happiness 
in the world of the senses. No god drives beings into 


1 In the actually existing state of things the resemblance to the relation of 
Christianity to Pharisaism is undeniable. 

2 “Change, O disciples, has its beginning in eternity. No beginning can 
be known.” “More tears have flowed than all the water that is in the four 
great oceans.” (Seed, tree, fruit, seed. Egg, hen, egg.) 


Buddha 183 


existence, but their own will and the logic of their own acts 
(Karma). It is not man’s soul that survives in death, but 
the result of his past life. The “self” remains the same 
through all change. But it cannot be represented by 
itself. It exists only like salt in sea-water. Hence only 
“the self” can free itself! (3) The suppression of the 
passion for existence can abolish pain. (4) Knowledge 
can abolish passion. Not indeed scientific or philosophic 
knowledge, but the knowledge through religion of the 
illusoriness of existence. This knowledge that leads to 
peace (to Nirvana) is the sole theme of Buddhist preach- 
ing.? But it is possible only as a practical conviction. It 
arises only on the basis of moral self-discipline and _ purifi- 
cation. He who “believes in Buddha,” ze. takes this 
gospel into his life, has passed beyond castes, philosophy, 
and good works. He has come to know the master 
architect. ‘“ Thou shalt not build the house again.” Heis 
an Arhat, master of all worlds and endowed with miracu- 
lous powers. But if he feels the omnipotent redeeming 
love for his fellow-creatures, he becomes a Bodhisatta 
and may in a future age, as a new Buddha, preach the 
gospel that has been forgotten. For Buddhism assumes 
that there have always been Buddhas and always will be 
new ones. Hence an almost limitless tolerance is pos- 
sible. Wherever anything like the doctrine of redemption 
is believed, a Buddhist can see a perhaps half-forgotten 
teaching of former Buddhas. Thus, for example, in the 
presence of Christianity: “The doctrine is the same, only 


1 “Self is the lord of self. Who else should be lord a 

2 “The wise man no longer takes part in disputations, He is calm among 
the disturbed, and seeks no further knowledge.” “To cleanse oneself of all 
impurity, as a goldsmith purifies silver.” 


184 Prophet Religions 


the interpretation is different.” In the present age, 
according to Buddhist doctrine, four deliverers have 
already appeared, of whom Sakhya Muni was the last. 
The fifth will be the last saviour, Metteya. But the same 
is repeated in the countless ages that are ever born anew. 
At bottom the Buddhas are, of course, only guides. They 
set the “wheel of doctrine” in motion anew. Every 
creature must redeem himself. He who has quenched the 
lust of existence by right knowledge is happy and at 
peace. He has already passed from Samsara to Nirvana 
and is certain at death to enter into Nirvana. Buddha 
himself has not defined this idea more precisely. Nirvana 
can be understood as a life above existence or as complete 
extinction. It means in itself “extinction,” “as a lamp 
goes out” (Sutta Nipata, 39). The milder theory thinks 
of the extinction of the sensual impulse toward life and of 
unhappy worldly existence. But without doubt the com- 
plete cessation of individual existence is the real logical 
consequence of the system.” 

5. The Buddhas themselves can save noone. They can 
only, as guides, call the truths of redemption to a living 
consciousness in men. And the gods can, to be sure, give 
worldly gifts, but not salvation. Hence a cult is excluded 
of itself, for in a cult man aims at attaining salvation. 
But religion fills up this gap by the cult of the Buddha, 
though to be sure it is only an extolling of his virtues. 
The spirit that has freed itself becomes god, and Nirvana, 

1 “We live in great joy, sound among the sick.” With no wish for the 
pleasant, nothing is unpleasant to us.” 

2 One can remember that the Zw aiwmos in John has also at once an 
eschatological and religious meaning. All the clearer is the diametrical con- 


trast of the two views of the world. The Zw% is the strongest possible affir- 
mation, Nirvana, the emphatic negation, of existence. 


Buddha 185 


more or less positively conceived, becomes the highest 
good. Buddha, Dhamma (the law), and Samgha (the 
church, ze the perfecti of Buddhism, the monks) form the 
Buddhist trinity. That the religious needs of the people 
have created substitutes for the real God, like the old 
world-creating Buddha of the Mongols, is natural. In 
Thibet there reigns a form of Buddhism that reminds us 
in many ways of Roman Catholicism and has been per- 
haps directly influenced by Christianity. Tsong-Khapa, 
the reformer of Thibetan Buddhism, did not appear until 
the fourteenth century, when through monks and political 
emissaries news of the Catholic church had long pene- 
trated into the interior of Asia. The resemblances are so 
great that the Catholic priests Huc and Gabet (to be sure, 
not very critical) believed in a diabolic imitation of 
Christianity. In the great monastic cities, in whose heads 
new incarnations of Buddha are honored, especially at 
Lhassa, the residence of the Dalai Lama, they found stoles 
and mitres in use, censers and tonsure, crosiers and 
rosaries, confession and holy water, sacred pictures and 
relics. Prayer has here become mechanical. Ingeniously 
constructed prayer-mills, driven by wind or by water, show 
the divinity as they turn the old Indian invocation written 
on a roll of paper: Om mani padme hum. Monasticism 
and its support by alms seem in almost all Buddhist 
regions the main affair of religion. The monks (lamas) 
are the real “church” of Buddhism. They live in spiritual 
communities of many thousands. And in the southeastern 
regions of this religion every man must for a while choose 
the monk’s life. It is the honor and joy of the laity to fill 
the monk’s begging bowl. Buddhaghosa’s parables are 
essentially “monkish fancies” (500 a.p.). For women 


186 Prophet Religions 


original Buddhism has the saying: “ Look not on them ; 
speak not with them.” 

6. The ethics of this religion knows no exaggerated 
self-torment, although, of course, the extinction of the 
passion for life includes a very ascetic attitude toward mar- 
riage, the state, and property, — one to our notions incon- 
sistent with society. The perfect man must renounce all 
intercourse with the other sex and all intoxicants and 
stimulants. He must limit himself to one daily meal, may 
not have a comfortable bed, and must renounce dancing, 
singing, the stage, jewellery, and ointments. The larger 
community of the devout must strictly shun all killing of a 
living creature, as well as theft, falsehood, drunkenness, 
and unchastity. Marvellously deep and morally ripe, 
nevertheless, is the conception of duty and virtue in 
Buddha’s own sayings, according to the Dhammapada.! 

7. Thus Buddhism brings a liberation of man from the 
world and a supreme good through the word of faith. It 
makes the poor happy, and abolishes the conceit of wis- 
dom, privilege of caste, and trust in works. But this liber- 
ation is wrought, not by devotion to God, but by atheism 
(philosophy). Its supreme good is the renunciation of the 

1“ Flate is never cured by hate; hate is cured by love.” “ Poison does not 
harm him who has no wound; evil does not exist for him who commits no 
wrong.” “Seek no joy through another’s pain.” “He who does not act 
according to his words is a fair flower without fragrance.” ‘One way leads 
to wealth, another to Nirvana.” “The fool who thinks himself wise is the 
true fool.” “Conquer wrath with love, evil with good.” “As a mother 
guards her child at the risk of her own life, so shall every one cherish a 
boundlessly friendly sentiment toward all beings.” What is the best pil- 
grimage ? Purity of heart. Who is rich? He who does good to others. 
Who is born? He who awaits no rebirth... . Who is blind? He who 
has pleasure in what is forbidden.” (Wreath of Jewels.) “ What art thou 


doing with that braid of hair, with that apron of skin? In thy soul yawns 
the gulf. Thou touchest only the outside.” (Buddhaghosa. ) 


Lhe Prophet Religion of Israel 187 


rights of personality. Not the conquest, but the negation 
of the world, not love, but pity, is the source of its peculiar 
power, and the pity is in itself devoid of all moral purpose.1 
Buddhism has, it is true, been able to subdue rudeness 
and unbridled desire. But its effects are enervating and 
hostile to culture. And, at bottom, its ethical motive, like 
that of the Stoics, is purely egoistic and excludes all im- 
pulse to common action. Only the Buddhas show real 
love. As a fact, this religion has almost everywhere issued 
in new superstitions or in empty works serving hierarchical 
ends, where it has not, as in China and Japan, made peace- 
ful terms with other religions. At first the impulse of 
redeeming love that proceeded from Buddha abolished 
quietism. But, in fact, quietism has long ago crippled 
redeeming love. 


(4) Semitic PropHet RELIGIONS 


21. Lhe Prophet Religion of Israel (Old Testament 
Theology) 


I. Israel, as a nation, is the result of a comparatively 
recent union of pastoral Semitic tribes. Hence it is only 
natural that primitive Semitic paganism should have 
formed the groundwork of its religious life. And the 
religious history of this race, as far as accessible to us, 
shows distinctly enough the traces of such a religious 
foundation running up even into the higher phases of its 
religion. The worship of the tribal deity, without thought 
concerning the existence and character of the divinities of 
other peoples (henotheism), the limitation of religion to 

1 The “pity” of Buddhism makes no distinction among “ breathing crea- 


tures.” All are, at bottom, of the same sort, pilgrims at different stages of the 
journey. But love demands personalities for personal communion. 


188 Prophet Religions 


the life of the one clan (particularism), the interweaving 
of piety with various nature rites (ritual), Hebrew paganism 
has shared with all primitive nature religions. But it was 
free, in common with Semitic religions in general, in dis- 
tinction from the Hamitic, from two things that would have 
made the transition to a spiritual monotheism impossible, 
viz. the worship of the great mother goddess, with its 
orgies, and the motley mythology that created individu- 
alized gods. Boundless devotion to the “holy” God, be- 
fore whom nature trembles, and to the “hidden” God, 
whose inscrutable will is wrought omnipotently ; enthu- 
siastic admiration of the “King,” who protects his 
people, maintains the rights of society, and overthrows 
the foe; and a rude simplicity, — such were the essential 
characteristics of the religion of these pastoral tribes. In 
the ecstatic figure of the prophet, and in the appearance 
of the Nazarites, which was a protest against enfeebling 
culture, this peculiar quality of the Hebrews has most 
distinctly declared itself. Here the soil was ready for 
religious monotheism, but only the soil. Without a reve- 
lation of God through prophets, Israel would have had no 
more significance for religion than Edom or Moab. 

Out of this simple form of religion was developed a 
higher one, when Israel, under the leadership of Moses, 
had achieved a fixed abode. The beginning of this higher 
development may perhaps go still farther back. But 
Moses, the founder and liberator of the nation, has, never- 
theless, been the decisive personality for the “people of 
Jahve.” The strong traces of paganism in the people 
were gradually eliminated among the leading classes by 
the efforts of the prophets since the eighth century. To 
this end, along with the prophetic gifts of such men, the 


Lhe Prophet Religion of Israel 189 


sense of failure of national vigor and the rise of “ stronger” 
foreign deities must have contributed. The conception 
of God as a tribal deity, bound by natural ties to this one 
people, could not be maintained when overwhelming judg- 
ments fell upon Israel and when its national feebleness 
was more and more clearly revealed. Religion must either 
disappear or become a belief in the one God who carried 
out his moral purposes in Israel and in the world in 
righteous and omnipotent ways. And the religious com- 
munity of the Second Temple, organized anew after the 
destruction of the national life, developed this loftier 
conception of religion with a logic and a purity that have 
no match in pre-Christian religious history.! It is true that 
the peculiar nature of this development carried with it 
dangers for the healthful growth of prophetic religion. 
This religion, the foundation and premise of Christianity, 
does not rest, therefore, on a single prophetic personality. 
The Old Testament tradition, which represents it as spring- 
ing up ready-made under the hand of Moses, is not his- 
torically defensible. But it is the work of a succession of 
prophets, who, beginning with the founding of the nation 
by Moses, developed in touch with one another and in the 
same direction, and were thus able to make their living piety 
decisive for the religious life of their nation, in spite of all 
the opposition of pagan tendencies. Hence we have here 
unquestionably a prophet religion, born of an_ historical 
revelation. The revelation of God in the souls of devout 
men is its creative principle. The Hamitic culture re- 
ligions in Babylon and Egypt have furnished much mate- 
rial to Israel’s culture and to its religious imagination, but 


1 The comparison with the restoration of the Persian religion under the 
Sassanides and with the editing of the Avesta canon is very interesting. 


190 Prophet Religions 


on its religious development they have had effect only by 
force of contrast. 

2. The God of Israel, Jahve, who since Moses absorbed 
the deities of the several tribes, was for a long time not 
understood by the people as the only God in the abstract 
sense, but only as the sole permissible object of the 
popular cult. But the more deep piety grew, and the 
more it was understood that Jahve could not be the su- 
preme deity alongside the gods of other nations, the more 
strong and pure did belief in him become as the one 
God (Deut. 6) to whom all other nations and gods 
were absolutely subject. Thus the people of Jahve 
became the religious community of the one God. When 
Israel saw in Jahve the self-existent (Ex. 3, 6) and the 
creator of the world (Gen. I, 2), monotheism was prac- 
tically established. The revelation of the will of this God 
seemed at first quite as much the establishment of rites for 
God’s own egoistic and personal satisfaction and the inex- 
orable carrying out of certain sacred usages belonging 
to the realm of nature, as the personal interposition of 
God in favor of the great foundations of human morality 
and civil law. Here, as with the Persians, nature and 
morality were not clearly distinguished. But the prophets 
saw more and more clearly that God had no pleasure in 
rites in themselves, but in justice, mercy, and truth in the 
lives of his worshippers. And in the Holy of Holies lay 
the Decalogue as the condition of the covenant as now 
conceived by Israel. The community of the Second 
Temple has, to be sure, based the elaborate ritual and 
the whole system, composed of very various elements, of 
the peculiar forms of Israel’s life, directly on God’s will. 
And it has also resurrected long-dead motives of Semitic 


The Prophet Religion of Israel IgI 


superstition in a modified form, as, for instance, its view 
of blood, the impurity of “dead” matter, and the pro- 
hibition of certain animals as food. But the limitation 
of sanctity to one spot rendered the cult incapable of 
serving practically as the daily expression of personal 
piety. It had, in short, become at bottom a symbol, and 
the majority of the people took only a spiritual part in it, 
through their faith in the uninterrupted community of 
God with his people. And the special forms which served 
as bulwarks for the now unprotected national life of Israel 
receded in the eyes of real piety, as the hymns of the 
Second Temple show, behind the great conceptions of 
morality, faith, and hope. This we can naturally assume 
to have been most the case in the circles of the Jewish 
Dispersion, for which the connection with the ritual life 
of Israel was loose and the necessity of contact with 
Gentiles imperative. Thus the danger of falling back 
from a progressive religion into a reactionary cur- 
rent existed only in the community in Palestine. But 
there the relapse occurred, in the fashion of all profes- 
sional ecclesiasticism, legality, and formally organized 
learning. And as the growing inclination to make cult, 
dogma, and ritual the real centre of the newly arisen 
“Judaism” became more and more supreme through the 
Pharisaic tendency in the people, the point was reached 
where the perfection of this religion must be achieved, 
not by quiet development, but by a break with the 
old. Israel’s Christ must become the founder of a world 
religion that reduced Judaism to the level of a sect 
(cTovxyela Tod Kdopov). 

3. The genuine prophet religion in Israel combines the 
optimism of the Persians with the profound idealism of 


192 Prophet Religions 


the Buddhists, the grandeur of a religion of humanity 
with the enthusiastic glow of a national cult. God reveals 
himself in it as the almighty and holy One, whose will is 
identical with the idea of morality among men. Therewith 
vanishes the old terror before the inscrutable will of God, — 
though, of course, living on in the popular conscience 
as an instinct. The morality of man becomes positive, — 
one based on character. The morally good will takes the 
place of tribal custom as the centre of life. The religious 
community feels itself, by faith and morality, partaker of 
God’s favor and united with him (righteous). The ancient 
feeling of a natural community with the tribal deity be- 
comes faith in God’s gracious choice and in a covenanted 
relation to him conditioned on moral conduct. And Israel 
believes in the forgiveness of repented sins, a forgiveness 
usually wrought through the cult as the expression of the 
desire for pardon, but where the ritual of the cult is not 
possible, also looked for simply from the covenanted love 
and faithfulness of God. Repentance and faith are the 
real conditions of the forgiveness of sins. And, fully con- 
scious of its sinfulness, the people feels itself, neverthe- 
less, reconciled to God by its connection with the men of 
God who guarantee to God the fidelity and devotion of 
Israel (covenant). The sufferings of the servant of God 
through love for the sinful people and fidelity to God are 
the highest sacrifice of atonement, and one that guaran- 
tees Israel’s future. The fundamental mood of piety is 
the humility that receives all as a grace, and the happy 
confidence that overcomes even suffering and doubt. 
Theoretically, it is true, the doubt that must continually 
arise from the contradiction between the actual world and 
the postulates of religion, as long as the goal of per- 


Lhe Prophet Religion of Israel 193 


sonality is sought in the external satisfactions of this 
world, is not overcome. The sufferings of the pious man 
are the great trial of faith in the Old Testament; of them 
the Psalms speak, and the Book of Job seeks an explana- 
tion without really finding it. At this stage of piety 
that the sufferer ceases to taste God’s grace, that he has 
to bear long and unusual misfortune, remains an insolu- 
ble riddle. All the grander appears the power of this 
religion when it has been able to conquer this temptation 
to doubt by hope or resignation; and in the thought of 
“vicarious suffering” and of the “mysterious discipline 
of God,” it has come near to its solution. The typical 
quality of Israel’s piety is the resolute defence of God’s 
will, in which honest hatred of the enemies of that will 
is necessarily included. The wisdom of Israel is the 
viewing the world and the task of life in the light of 
faith. Its hope sees a perfected people of God, adorned 
with all the goods of nature and of grace, a victor over 
the opposition of the world. And the nations of the 
world share in this perfection. The great central thought 
of religion, the idea of the kingdom of God, is here planted 
in the soil of a national life, to develop into an ideal for 
humanity. The figure of the Messiah appears only as 
one, by no means essential, feature in this picture. And, 
although his figure may have had a powerful effect among 
the people and grown more important to it in dark times, 
it has had no significance for the religious relationship of 
the individual to God. 

4. In this religion lie all the conditions for true piety. 
The absolutely transcendent God, whose will is one with 
the good, can lift his people, who feel themselves bound to 


him, above the fear and enslavement of the world, and 
Oo 


194 Prophet Religions 


give their moral life imperishable strength and power. 
“If only I have thee, I care nothing for heaven or earth.” 
But the life of the individual remains still so completely a 
part of the life of the community that the eternal signifi- 
cance of moral personality does not come to its rights. 
The doctrine of the resurrection did not arise till very late, 
perhaps not without foreign influence, and was never rec- 
ognized generally as a constituent part of piety (Sadducees). 
And even it has plainly been applied to the individual at 
first only in connection with the resurrection of the nation 
and the judgment of its unworthy members. The God of 
the world is not yet fully separated from the old God of 
Israel, and the moral not entirely freed from the natural. 
God’s own final motive for his revelation by no means 
appears as yet as love to men. Hence this highest motive 
of morality among men could not be born from faith in 
God’s own purposes. And a human life that conquers sin 
and death in God’s strength and makes the world subject 
to it is, to be sure, longed for by hope and pictured by 
prophecy, but appears nowhere as a reality to which the 
pious man can cling by faith and in which he can find 
comfort. So the last joy of belief is lacking. Israel’s 
religion is only a stage in a higher development, and only 
in this sense is it a true revealed religion. But what it 
longed for was not a new theory, but a deed, not a new 
prophet, but a redeemer and king. 


22. Islam. The Reformation of Arabian Paganism under 
the Influence of Biblical Religion 


1. The Moslem sees in his religion the conclusion of 
the revelation made to the children of Abraham. With 
right chronologically, but wrongly if we bear in mind the 


lslam 195 


home of this religion and the character of the culture pos- 
sessed by itsfounder. Islam is an anachronism. Moham- 
med (born 570 a.p.) knew the Judaism of the Talmudists, 
but not the religion of Israel’s prophets. Independent 
Jewish tribes were then settled in Arabia, chiefly around 
Medina. And almost every Surah of the Koran shows 
that Mohammed was familiar with the marvellous legends 
of the scribes based on the Old Testament. The angel of 
his visions is “ Gabriel.” At first he plainly entertained the 
hope to win the “holders of Scripture” as his allies. He 
started from Jewish observances, enjoined, é.g., at first fac- 
ing toward Jerusalem in prayer. Not until he saw his 
expectations futile’ did he emphasize the Arabian charac- 
ter of his revelation more strongly and adopt, as far as 
possible, the ancient customs of the cult of Mecca. But the 
spirit of the Psalms and prophets never touched him. 
Christianity too he knew only in its sectarian forms. The 
legend of Jesus, the virgin’s son, he willingly accepted and 
did not deny him the honor of being the judge of the 
world. It is true that he conceived Christ’s passion in 
the Docetic fashion, with which the Gnostics and Mani- 
cheeans that, along with Esseans, Ebionites, and Nesto- 
rians, had fled from the realm of orthodox Christianity 
to the Arabian steppes, had probably made him familiar 
(Surahs 3, 5, 18,19). A passionate polemic he has carried 
on only against those who called Jesus the “son” of God 
or made him of the same nature with God. These 
seemed to him to falsify the preaching of Jesus.2 But he 


1 From this time on he complains that they have corrupted Scripture and 
oppose him as they did the old prophets; that they deify Ezra and show the 
false quality of their piety by their fear of death (Surahs 9, 62, 85, 90). 

2“The Christians are the friendliest to the Moslems because there are 
priests and monks among them and they are not too proud” (Surah 5), 


196 Prophet Religions 


knew neither of Jesus’ words nor of the theology of Paul 
and John. Hence he does not stand on the summit of 
previous religious development, but in his antecedents is 
on a lower stage of development. 

2. The religion that Mohammed found among his own 
people was a simple and pretty rude form of Semitic 
paganism. The Kaaba and the pilgrimage to Mecca were 
the sanctities of one of the most venerated among the local 
cults. Mohammed’s tribe (Quraish) took a conspicuous 
part in this cult of Mecca. Earlier and contemporary 
Jewish and Christian influences had probably led many 
to a somewhat higher conception of religion, though we 
must not exaggerate, with Sprenger, the significance of 
these Hanifs. But the rude pagan character of the popu- 
lar religion had not changed. Beside this piety of his 
countrymen, Mohammed's religious convictions involved 
doubtless a much purer conception of God. Beside the 
Old Testament and Christianity, they are an obscuring of 
the already existing revelation of the divine, and Moham- 
med is a false prophet. 

3. However unfavorably Mohammed be judged, how- 
ever much his original aims be considered as essentially 
social, and the deep shadows of the moral content of his 
life — especially his cruelty, faithlessness, and sensuality 
—that appeared after he had begun to wield political 
power in Medina be emphasized, still, in view of the first 
half of his life and the most significant Mecca Surahs 
of the Koran, it can hardly be denied that he was gifted 


“Jesus is Mary’s son, the emissary of the Sublime and his word. He has 
made him descend into Mary’s womb. But say not that there is a trinity in 
God. God is one. Far be it that he should have a son” (Surahs 2, 10, 17, 
19, 21). “Jesus has wished only to proclaim God’s honor and be a servant 
of God like the angels” (Surahs 4, 23, 43). 


Lslam 197 


with religious genius and originally regarded himself 
with inner conviction as a revealer of God. His hatred 
of polytheism and his sense of the unity and sublimity 
of God, although roused in him by Jewish and Chris- 
tian influences, have, nevertheless, taken on in him the 
character of an immediate personal certainty and enthusi- 
asm. He has never given himself out as anything else 
than a God-sent “ warner” who is to restore to his people 
the old legacy of Abraham (Surahs 3, 18, 22, 26, 27AL): 
And he bore long years of failure with the strength that 
only faith gives. In twelve years he gained scarcely a 
hundred adherents, and had to fly his native city (622). 
Also, his moral standard, in view of his race and age, is 
no low one. We must not forget that Khadijah, for whom 
he, though much younger, preserved a lifelong fidelity, 
always remained firm in her faith in him ; and that his first 
adherents, among them men of unusual keenness of judg- 
ment, like Abu-Bekr and Omar, have believed in him even 
after his reverses (at Mt. Uhud, 62 5); although he never 
claimed to be a miracle worker (Surahs 6, 17, 20), and 
led his life among them without any mystery (Surahs 1o, 
17), nay, although they by no means approved of some 
things in his conduct, such as his extra-legal marriages. 
Much that offends us in the picture of his life must be 
judged by ancient Arabian ideas ; for instance, his cruelty 
and guile toward his enemies, chiefly toward the Jewish 
tribes (Surahs 2, 5, 9, 47), or his polygamy, to which prob- 
ably, as with the ancient kings of Israel, political consider- 
ations often moved him. If we think of the moral point 
of view of the age of the Judges in Israel, whose religious 
and moral plane is something like that reached by Moham- 
med, we shall not refuse him a mild verdict. To his 


198 Prophet Religions 


friends he has seemed, in spite of his weaknesses, a model 
of manly virtue. In the fulness of his power he lived 
poor, and he died poor. But because he had received from 
God no real “revelation” for man, he has broken down 
morally under the weight of the contradiction between his 
prophetic claims and reality. In his later period we meet 
unquestionably deliberate falsehoods, for instance, in the 
Surahs in which he covers his own errors and misdeeds 
by alleged new revelations.! A certain lack of feeling for 
truth is certainly early visible in him, for instance, in the 
efforts to come to terms with the cult of Mecca, though such 
pagan usages contradicted the real essence of his religion ; 
or to take over into the new religion the popular goddesses, 
Lat, Uzza, and Manat, as “daughters of Allah,’’ — an act 
that he has, to be sure, later openly regretted. As to how 
far his disposition to self-deception and to sensual indul- 
gence has had a physical basis — perhaps an epileptic dis- 
order —connected with the excitability of the ecstatic, 
different opinions will be held according to the historical 
value assigned to the oldest accounts of his life. 

4. After long doubt of the reality and divinity of the 
revelations experienced by him, Mohammed reached an 
inner conviction of his mission that seems never again to 
have left him. The first angelic vision that came to him is 
told in Surah 96 (“ Read in the name of thy Lord”’); the 
decisive revelation that put an end to his doubts, in Surah 
74 (“O thou Veiled One, arise and walk’) (Surahs 53, 
94). But for him revelation is not, as for the men of the 
Bible, a vital infusion of God’s power and thought (spirit), 
but the communication by an angel of the “Book” pre- 
served with the absolutely hidden God. Hence in its 


1 Surahs 3, 8, 12, 13, 33) 492 591 66. 


Lslam 199 


form Islam has entirely the character of pure supernatu- 
ralism, while in its content it is at bottom essentially ration- 
alism, mixed, to be sure, with the superstition that his age 
and culture, together with Talmudic Judaism, thrust on 
Mohammed.! The worship of the one God? is the real 
content of Mohammed's revelation: “The Lord thy God 
is a sole God, he is not begotten, he has not begotten, he 
has not his like” (Surah 111 °). Along with this he 
preaches resignation to this God’s absolutely sovereign 
will, belief in angels (z.e. revelation) and in the Day of 
Judgment, observance of prayer, justice, and charity. The 
real Islam is “belief in the Last Day and the angels and 
the Book and the prophets, and to do good to one’s kin and 
orphans, the poor and wanderers, and to keep the covenant 
and be patient under poverty, suffering, violence” (Surahs 
2, 42,98). Itis regarded as the completion of the old reve- 
lation and the reproclamation of the religion of Abraham. 
Judaism and Christianity it can in a certain sense acquiesce 
in as corrupted forms of the true religion. ‘So those 
who believe, Jews, Nazarenes, Sabians — whoever believes 
in God and in the Last Day and does good — they have 
their reward of God, and no fear touches them” (Surahs 25, 


1 Surahs 2, 250 confound Saul with Gideon; 28, 2, Laban with Jethro. 
The further development of Jewish legend is seen especially in Surahs 2, 3, 
5, 6, 7, 10, II, 12, 14-21, 23, 27, 34, 37, 38, 40, in 

* Before his time Allah was the great God among the local gods and god- 
desses of Arabia, though the latter, to be sure, were far more prominent in 
the cult. 

8 Also Surahs 5, 6, 13, 25 37» 38; 42, 55, 57,59. The second Surah is very 
grand. The first (Fatthah) serves for common prayer: “Glory be to God, the 
Lord of the worlds, the merciful, the gracious, King of the Day of Judgment. 
We serve thee, we cry to thee. Guide us in the right path, the path of those 
whom thou blessest, not of those on whom falls thy wrath, and not of the 
erring,” 


200 Prophet Religions 


42). But it looks on them as outlived forms, far below it- 
self. “If they say: Become Jews or Christians, let your- 
selves be taught, say thou: Nay, be ours the religion of 
Abraham, the Hanif who was not one of the idolaters.”’ 
“Were Abraham and Ishmael, Isaac and Jacob, Jews or 
Christians? Will ye be wiser than God?” (Surahs 2, 
3, 16). With the flight to Medina (Yathrib), Mohammed 
became the prophet-chieftain and warrior, and the sin- 
cerity of his religious consciousness has been impaired by 
this ambiguous position. His own person, in accordance 
with the purely supernaturalistic character of his reve- 
lation, has either not become an object of faith and part 
of the content of the religion (Wahhabi), or has become 
so without logical consistency. 

s. Islam is essentially a “pure feeling of dependence,” 
though it knows also gratitude and admiration. It can in- 
spire and elevate. But it is utterly incapable of filling the 
soul with clearer and fuller confidence and so making it 
really free. For its God is the hidden God whose will is 
the unknowable will of arbitrary caprice. It is true that, 
in general, benevolence and justice are ascribed to God. 
He is gracious and forgiving, does not demand what is 
hard, but what is easy. And he is also the Lord of the 
Judgment Day. But he is not the love that seeks com- 
munity with man, nor the perfect holiness that cannot 
suffer evil and demands the sanctification of the soul. In 
resignation to God’s will lies, it is true, the power of not 
fearing the world, but not the trust that God will, from the 
impulse of his own love, preserve and complete the moral 
personality of man. Belief in providence becomes belief 
in a fate that, fixed from all eternity, determines human 
fortunes beyond hope of escape (Surahs 3, 4, 9, 15, 35; 36, 


Lslam 201 


41). And belief in a living revelation becomes accept- 
ance of a book (Surahs 2, 6, 10, 16, 59) “to which no 
doubt can attach.” Patience is the fundamental virtue of 
the Moslem, — not as the expression of a childlike trust in 
God, but of submission to the inevitable. The thought of 
external penalties and of sensual bliss is emphasized in 
countless passages again and again as the sole motive to 
virtue. Hence the joys of Paradise are painted in new 
and glowingly sensuous colors (Surahs 38, 44, 52, 55, 76, 
78). Prayer, alms, fasts, and pilgrimages stand as dona 
opera alongside of a justztia civilis that neither penetrates 
the depths of the heart nor shrinks from compromises 
with the flesh. The Moslem is not to do wrong or suffer 
wrong. Against treachery and hate, treachery and hate 
are admissible. One must not be a niggard, but also not 
so generous as to strip oneself. It is permissible to unite 
with the duty of pilgrimage profit in trade or war. From 
burdensome injunctions, ¢.g. fasting, the rich man can buy 
himself off with money. He can by alms atone for 
thoughtless oaths, nay even false oaths (Surahs 5, 6). In 
marriage laws the widest scope is given to the caprice 
of male sensuality (Surahs 2, 5, 6, 8, 1 7). But, on the 
other hand, justice toward the dismissed wife and in the 
division of inheritances is strictly insisted on. Usury, 
greed, infanticide, slander, are sternly reproved. Benevo- 
lence and magnanimity are often enjoined. And that 
each of the “ Faithful” belongs as such to the aristocracy 
of the race and is equal to the highest gives this religion 
an unmistakable loftiness and a charm for inferior races. 
The regulations touching the external forms of life are 
limited to a comparatively small number. Fasting is con- 
fined to Ramadan. Aside from certain injunctions as to 


202 Prophet Religions 


food and circumcision, only pilgrimage and taking part in 
the holy war are prescribed. Abstinence from wine and 
games of chance is based, not on superstitious considera- 
tions, but on the great harm wrought by these two indul- 
gences (Surahs 2, 5). Friday has by no means the legal 
character of the Sabbath, which is left to the Jews 
(Surah 16). The turning in prayer is treated as a matter 
of indifference (Surah 2). But thus simplified, these 
ordinances, as well as civic honesty and justice, are 
looked on as direct commandments of God. It is sig- 
nificant that even the civil and military institutions that 
were necessary at the beginning of Islam become eternal 
commandments of God as they appear in the Koran. 
Thus the stage of culture in Arabia at Mohammed’s time 
becomes a divinely established and unchangeable stand- 
ard for law, state, and knowledge. It is, to be sure, much 
that religion is here entirely freed from the limitations of 
nationality. Every Moslem has the same religious rights. 
But the place of the nation is taken by a religious com- 
munity that is organized into a state and maintains itself 
by political means. The ideal is a universal religion that 
should rule all men, not from within by recognition of 
their individual quality, but from without by reducing of 
them by force to one common level perhaps comparable 
to the empires that the Mongol invasions created. Thus 
Islam became hostile to culture and progress. It can, to 
be sure, elevate for the moment in times of enthusiasm by 
its belief in Kismet, but on the whole it must make men 
apathetic to the claims of culture, and passive. And it 
is the death of higher morality, because it knows no in- 
flexible ideal and nothing of a pure heart. Its hopes look 
forward to nothing more than egotistic happiness cata 
adapxa. And whoever has the true faith and observes the 


Islam 203 


commands of God has a good conscience. There is easy 
and comfortable absolution for transgressions. God takes 
human sin lightly and man is freed from his guilt without 
appearing before the court of his own conscience. In the 
first forty Surahs recurs more than forty times: “God is 
forgiving and gracious.” It is only wrongs to his majesty 
that God does not pardon. Comfortable and consoling to 
the natural man, influential and not without benefaction 
for the civilization of primitive paganism though it is, 
Islam is from the point of view of religious history an 
immense backward step; though it is true that in compar- 
ison with the Judaism of Arabian scribes and the idol- 
atrous Christianity of the Eastern church, Mohammed’s 
religion was spiritually superior. Mysticism is entirely un- 
known to this religion. Where it has appeared on the soil 
of Moslem culture, it has come from foreign sources. 
There can scarcely be a sharper contrast than that be- 
tween Islam and the pantheistic mysticism of the Sufis, 
e.g. Jalal-uddin Rumi’s, who sings of the “death of the 
dark despot Self through love,” who finds the deity only 
in the heart, according to whose doctrine God has created 
the world from love for the individual human soul, who 
preaches deliverance from the phenomenal world, and for 
whom all revelation (book, angel, prophets, divine steed) 
becomes the experiencing of God in the heart. Here we 
have Hindoo, not Arabian, thought. 

In the same way the rationalism of the Motazilites and 
their attempt to frame an ethical idea of God and to lessen 
the authority of the Koran has proved to be inconsistent 
with the deepest instincts of this religion. The great 
schism of the Shiites and the Sunnites, and the four Sun- 
nite schools, have no significance for the position of Islam 
in the philosophy of religion. 


BOOK III 


CHRISTIANITY THE PERFECT EMBODIMENT OF 
RELIGION: DEFENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 


PART OTHE NATURE SOR CHRISTIANITY 


23. Jesus in History 


I. CHRISTIANITY cannot be understood at all apart from 
its mother soil of the pious community of Israel and its 
foundation in earlier revelation and the sacred Scriptures. 
Jesus has always taken his stand decisively, sometimes 
with deliberate harshness, within the limits of the revela- 
tion of God to Israel. He knows himself sent to the lost 
sheep of the house of Israel. His fellow-countrymen are to 
him the “ children” who have the first claim on the “ bread” 
from God’s hand. And no jot nor tittle of the sacred 
Scriptures of his race shall be lost. He has come, not to 
annul, but to fulfil And he has demanded nothing that 
the prophets of Israel had not also demanded, viz. repent- 
ance, z.¢. the turning of the mind to the real goods of life, 
and belief in the present, new, living, perfect revelation of 
God. It is true that he has not read the Scriptures as a 
scribe but as a devout man, and has appropriated, not the 
theological and legal traits of the piety of the age, but 
its prophetic and religious content. But neither he nor 
his disciples have doubted that there was room for their 
piety within the religion of Israel, if rightly understood. 

204 


Jesus in Ffistory 205 


Looked at from this side, Jesus appears as the richly 
endowed reviver of the true content of the Old Testament 
revelation, which of course, if only from the continual read- 
ing of the Scriptures in the synagogues, lived more or less 
clearly in countless upright hearts; and as the liberator of 
his people from the more and more dominant fashion 
of Pharisaic pedantry that threatened to stifle the religion 
of the people. The “Teachers of the Law” were the 
real spiritual rulers in Israel. It is true that the worship 
in the temple at Jerusalem, by this time beautifully ordered 
and splendidly equipped down to its smallest detail, was 
the pride and joy of the whole people as never before in 
the religious history of Israel. But for the millions of the 
Jewish community who lived far from that shrine, this cult 
could have been no integral part of their daily piety and 
communion with God. It must at bottom have seemed to 
them a thing to be experienced only spiritually, faith’s 
guarantee of the favor of God toward his chosen people; 
a guarantee that they could exchange for a purely spirit- 
ual pledge of the divine favor, ¢.g. the preaching of the 
cross, without becoming conscious of any essential 
change in their religious attitude. But with the Law 
every Israelite had to reckon in his daily life and hence 
with the authority of the heads of the schools that inter. 
preted this law and taught its application. And the 
great majority of these teachers were guiding the piety of 
the people into fatal paths. They inspired it with that 
pride and that hatred of the Gentiles which were making it 
the object of universal odium, and with a jealous contempt 
for the civilization of which other nations were proud. 
They treated religion as if it were a legal institution. 
Law and ordinance, not faith and love, were in their eyes 


206 The Nature of Christianity 


the divine purpose of revelation and the condition of 
.righteousness. With casuistic shrewdness they developed 
a fantastic religious system of law and drew around the 
ordinances of the Thora the “ hedge” of their “‘ command- 
ments of men,” to avert all dangerous approach to the 
sacred ground. And they taught the people to see in 
the punctilious obedience of such “ordinances of God” 
the means of putting the omnipotent God at the service 
of their political hopes and their national hatreds. The 
people of religion threatened more and more to petrify 
into a community of mere external legality. To aims like 
these Jesus opposed himself, as if they belonged to a 
different world. Superficially regarded, he might seem 
related to the pious separatists in Israel (Essenes) whose 
spiritualistic tendencies were then giving to the movement, 
widespread in the Greek and Oriental world, toward an 
ascetic and mystic elevation above the interests of society 
and the lusts of the flesh, a unique form and one based on 
the Old Testament. But his piety showed none of their 
peculiar traits; it was the simple picture of the religion of 
Israel as set forth in the prophets and the Psalms. 

2. In the time of Jesus the majority of the people were, 
in the hands of the Pharisaic teachers of the law, full of 
earnestness and zeal, ready to venture everything for the 
spiritual inheritance of Israel. They were passionate and 
restive under the sense of the contrast between the 
religious pretensions of Israel to the lordship of the 
world, and the historical fact of their being a small and 
subject race. The synagogue, with its religious instruc- 
tion based on the Old Testament; the numerous commun-L. 
ties of the Dispersion, in which the national and political 
element of Judaism necessarily receded behind its great — 


Jesus in Fiistory 207 


religious and moral ideas; the waxing proselytizing and 
the Greek Bible, — were making possible a transition from 
the narrowness of Jewish life to a religion of humanity. 
And the noble development of a human ethic in some of 
the great schools, above all in that of Hillel, seemed often 
to transcend legal form. Hillel’s figure, transfigured in 
pious legend, is not unjustly a favorite theme of modern 
Jewish apologetes. His tireless zeal for study, his in- 
vincible gentleness, patience, and strength of soul, and 
his comprehension of the core of the injunctions of the 
Old Testament, lift him far above the average of Jewish 
teachers of the law. To him and his like go back the 
sayings contained in the Pirke Aboth: “ What you do not 
wish done to you, do not to others. That is the law. All 
else is explanation.” ‘“ He who gives joy to the soul of 
the creature, gives joy to the spirit of God.” “Judge 
not thy neighbor till thou hast put thyself in his place.” 
“Hast thou done thy duty, do not praise thyself; for 
it is what thou art bound to do.” “The poor are thy 
fellows.” ‘The best happiness is a good heart.” 
Modern Judaism is fond of setting up Hillel as the 
genuine conservative reviver of Jewish piety in contrast 
with the revolutionary actions of Jesus; just as modern 
Catholicism sets up Nicholas of Cusa as the true reformer 
in contrast with Luther’s heroic religious personality. In 
doing this both show that they have no real comprehen- 
sion of the nature of religion. Even in the best of. the 
rabbinical teachers there is no breath of religious genius 
nor of redeeming love for their race. They build with 
legal: ingenuity a shadowy world of imaginary legal con- 
ditions on the basis of the Thora. Their authority is 
tradition and the letter of Scripture interpreted by alle- 


208 The Nature of Christianity 


gorical caprice and yet in accordance with rule. “The 
decision can be found in Rabbi A.’’—such is even 
Hillel’s proof; he owes his own influence to the quoting 
of the sayings of older teachers. The teacher’s highest 
praise is “‘to resemble a well-pitched cistern that lets no 
drop escape.” Even Hillel spent the labor of his life 
on the building of the “hedge around the law,” disputed 
concerning tithes, Sabbath observance, and regulations 
about food, and thought it worth while to investigate 
whether oil ‘furnished by pagans” and “pagan” wine 
were fit for the altar, whether an egg laid on the Sabbath 
were clean, whether one could go on the Sabbath more 
than two thousand paces to bring help, etc. These men 
were fine and venerable figures in the retirement of the 
study and the school, but no deliverers of the poor and 
wretched and no renewers of the world. Neither the 
wisdom of the schools, nor the strange dream-world of 
apocolyptic speculation, nor the spiritualistic and ascetic 
doctrine of the mystics, had healing power for the people 
of religion. 

8.o;in sucha irace did Jesus appear, untouched by the 
follies of the schools, possessed in his deepest soul by 
the spirit of the prophetic religion of his people. He 
brought neither new theories of the philosopher or theolo- 
gian, nor new ordinances of the popular leader. He did 
not separate himself from the worship of Israel, —al- 
though he showed personally no need of it, —and he did 
not oppose the sacred usages of his people, unless their 
further maintenance was inconsistent with the great prin- 
ciples of piety and morality. He brought the religious 
miracle of his personality, and a great world-conquering 
and world-renewing deed. The new and unique relation- 


Jesus in FListory 209 


ship to God which he carried in his breast he imparted 
as revelation to his people. 

And in the certainty of being able to conquer the 
world with this revelation and to realize the hoped-for 
kingdom of God, he knew himself to be the promised 
Saviour to whom the ways of God with his people led. 
With none of the learning of the schools, he found the 
grains of gold in the Old Testament which the sages 
passed by. His genius led him away from the legalities 
of the Thora to the living spring of the prophets and 
sacred singers. Instead of a stone he gave bread; instead 
of the form, the spirit of the religion of his race. And 
by freeing the spirit of the Old Testament from its his- 
torical shell he elevated the whole level of Old Testa- 
ment religion, in which, even at its highest point, shell 
and spirit had never been clearly distinguished. But he 
did this, not by annulling, but by fulfilling. He completed 
what the great prophets had begun on the scale of their 
age. All external and ritual action has to yield to 
morality as conceived by religion. The true worth of 
morality lies in the disposition. And the sole indispen- 
sable condition for bliss in God is the humble, childlike 
soul that is not satisfied by the world, purity of heart, and 
the resolute will that can dare all for the highest. The 
content of the law and the prophets is love to God and 
our neighbor. The simple human duties are, in the same 
way, the real content of God’s will. The ordinances to 
which the famous teachers of the people bound righteous- 
ness are of men. Ritual acts and sacrifices occupy only 
the second place. The Sabbath is made for man. Fast- 
ing has no claim unless it come from the heart, but is a 
mere ordinance. But to be reconciled with one’s adver- 

P 


210 The Nature of Christianity 


sary, to honor parents by faithful care, these are God’s 
commandments and take precedence of all others. Not 
the act, but the will, decides in the moral realm. In hate 
and anger, murder, in the lustful glance, adultery, are al- 
ready committed. And from all limits of national narrow- 
ness and personal egoism, the love of God’s children that 
is born of the perfect love of God shall set free. The 
Samaritan becomes the neighbor of the Jew. To bless 
and love our enemy becomes the sign of membership in 
the kingdom. And with the genuine humility of repent- 
ant sinners, that renounces all righteousness of its own 
and all merit and claim in the eyes of God, is joined a 
childlike assurance of the inexhaustible fatherly love of 
God, always ready to receive the prodigal son, and seek- 
ing that which is lost. To find one’s soul by losing it, to 
be raised in God above all fear of earth, that is the mind 
of those to whom the “kingdom of heaven” belongs. 

This is the new thing that Jesus, out of his royal author- 
ity, proclaimed over against what they of old had taught. 
It is not new in its details and externally; but it is new 
as a whole and in its spirit. What in the Old Testament 
is chiefly prohibition, becomes with him injunction, or 
better, inner necessity. For the holy and awful God who 
is also good to his children has become for Jesus the 
Father in Heaven whose perfection is love, although as 
the Holy One he judges all that do not enter into his 
love. Thus Jesus preaches the kingdom of heaven that 
has come near us, and as king appointed by God wins for 
himself by his word the first subjects. 

4. Jesus did not reject the hopes of his people, but 
shared them to the full. He too announces the coming 
kingdom of God that is to be realized on earth, as a 


Jesus tn Flistory 21k 


kingdom of righteousness and bliss, by God’s creative 
power, when once judgment has been passed. He too 
holds the sure and happy certitude that God will create 
on earth a state of things in which he will bring his holy 
will to perfect fulfilment, to the weal of his people against 
the opposition of the world. When he left the earth 
Jesus referred to this. But the true nature of this king- 
dom is for him, not the national grandeur of Israel or the 
change of worldly conditions in favor of the temporal well- 
being of its members, but a common life for man in com- 
munion with God and love to one another. And in this 
sense the kingdom of God is in its real essence already 
here. The question may be raised, whether Jesus him- 
self used the phrase “ kingdom of God ” in any sense but 
of promise. It may be considered uncertain whether he 
claimed for himself on earth the title of Messiah that 
belongs to this kingdom. But no unprejudiced mind will 
deny, that in his eyes the chief thing and the one of 
most value to his people is the new significance of life 
that proceeds even here from him to his. In this sense 
the kingdom of God has been, for him at all events, 
a spiritually present one. Its coming was not merely 
hoped for. It is strown like seed in the field, lies hidden 
like treasure, is to be found like a pearl. It is mingled 
by Jesus’ preaching as a leaven in the people’s life. It 
grows up under God’s protection with inward necessity 
and vigor. It can be won even now if everything be 
staked for it; one is a citizen of this kingdom as 
soon as one enters by faith into the world of truth and 
love; the franchise of the kingdom can be won and 
with it the right to ask and receive forgiveness of sins. In 
its real essence the kingdom of God has been present 


2 The Nature of Christianity 


among the Israelites ever since Jesus won in Israel a band 
of disciples who let themselves be moulded by his spirit 
and took up arms for his royal rights. Whoever thus has 
a share in the invisible hidden reality of the kingdom of 
God is also certain to have a happy share in its glorious 
realization. 

s. The revelation of God, by whose believing accept- 
ance one becomes a child of the kingdom, was realized by 
Jesus on earth and he invites us to partake. To accept it 
is to become a member of the kingdom. Thus Jesus 
becomes for his disciples identical with this kingdom and 
means so to be. For him, as for the kingdom, they are 
to suffer, be able to bear persecution, learn to “hate” 
father and mother, that is, be ready to surrender every- 
thing on earth that is prized and pleasant to sensual 
desires. Thus Jesus is no longer a prophet, but the 
king of this kingdom, no longer the mere subject of 
religion, but its object. He is, to be sure, a hidden king, 
who shall not be revealed in his glory from the heavenly 
world until after his death. Therefore he calls himself the 
“Son of Man” (Dan. 7, 13, Ps. 8, 4), that is, the hidden 
Messiah who waits his heavenly revelation; and he enters 
his city as the humble king awaiting help from God 
(Zech. 9,9). He knows not the Father’s time and hour, 
and has no power to dispose of the places of honor in the 
kingdom of the future. But all is given over to hitn.t Ete) 
is the son and heir. And the final realization of the 
kingdom of God is his revelation (wapovcia). 

6. This position in religion which Jesus has claimed for 
himself was not based in his eyes on any reasoned knowl- 
edge of the possession of a superhuman life or on the 
memory of a former, higher mode of existence, to judge 


Jesus in Flistory 213 


from the oldest recollections of him. Nor has it pro- 
ceeded from far-fetched deductions, such as the learning 
of the scribes might have made from the Old Testa- 
ment and developed into dogma. It sprang from the 
immediate religious assurance of a unique community 
of love and knowledge with God that included perfect 
blessedness and power over the world (Matt. 11, 25 ff.). 
He alone knows God because he alone is what the chil- 
dren of God are to be. From his deepest religious 
experience he knows that God’s essential property is 
the perfect love that seeks the lost. Therewith fear of 
God becomes childlike love, and morality the joyful doing 
of God’s will. Through this uniqueness of his religious 
life his own personality too becomes for Jesus a secret 
known only to God, one whose comprehension outstrips 
all worldly standards and can be revealed only to faith. 
In this sense he calls himself zze Son of God, —in dis- 
tinction from the children of God who shall become like 
God in perfectness of love. He calls God zs heavenly 
Father in a different sense from that in which he has 
announced him as the father of all members of the king- 
dom. And while he, as individual, is humble and pious 
toward God and lives in prayer; while he seeks not his, 
but God’s, honor and proclaims not his own words, but 
what God has laid upon him; while he hides his miracles, 
is silent as to his early life, and rejects the predicate 
“good” with solemn earnestness, ascribing it only to 
his God, — he places himself, as king of the kingdom of 
God and as the revelation of the true nature and will of 
God, without hesitation at the centre of religion, since the 
king, as king, is the personal expression of the state and its 
ordinances. What he does on earth is God’s work for 


214 The Nature of Christianity 


the establishment of the kingdom of heaven. What he 
suffers is offering and purchase for the blessed liberty of 
the children of God. His death is the heroic death of the 
shepherd for the sheep. His blood is the blood of the 
covenant in which the community has guarantee of 
the love of God and God the guarantee of the good will of 
his children. His deeds of love and his words of evangel 
are the triumphant struggle against the prince of this 
world and against the powers of deceit and death. He 
himself looks on his actions and sufferings as a task 
imposed upon him by the Father and foretold in Scrip- 
ture, that he obediently fulfils. But his disciples are to 
see in them the revelation of the saving grace of God 
and the foundation of their salvation. Hence Jesus knows 
himself to be the content of the religion that he preaches, 


the human revelation of God, the object of faith, And 


the little community that gathered around him was dis- 
tinguished from other devout folk by the fact that they 
had in this man the revelation of the grace of God and 
the realization of the religious hopes of their people, and 
in their devotion to him felt assured of the forgiveness 
of sins as citizens of the kingdom. They found in his 
actions and sufferings the conditions of their salvation, 
and so through faith in him possessed a piety which 
assured them happiness in their personal life, dominion 
over the world, and an eternal goal for life. So they 
had in this man the goods at which all piety, consciously 
or unconsciously, aims. Their faith was waked and 
strengthened by Jesus’ miracles, and the events of the 
resurrection were necessary, if this faith was not to perish 
in the terrors of the death on the cross. But its real 
content was, nevertheless, the life of God that in Jesus had 


Jesus in Fiistory 215 


dawned on their hearts, “full of grace and truth,” and 
that had irresistibly compelled repentance and _ faith. 
With this the shadowy world of priestly rule and ritual 
splendor, of the learning of the scribes and the observance 
of forms, disappeared without any revolutionary attack. 
And with it disappeared the dreams of revolt and warlike 
efforts for liberty with which Israel had intoxicated itself. 
The poor in spirit received an invitation to the highest 
good. The particularism of the old religion was broken 
up from within, without Jesus’ having, except in occasional 
utterances, intentionally pointed beyond the boundaries of 
his nation or raised the great question around which the 
thoughts of the Apostle Paul turn. It was at once seen 
that in his kingdom there was room for all souls that 
longed for salvation and for all pure hearts; that his feast, 
scorned by those invited first, stood ready for the hungry 
and thirsty; that if the “builders” rejected the corner- 
stone, the temple was founded for the Gentiles. And 
because he promulgated no external laws and ordinances 
that must grow old, but eternal and fundamental ideas, 
Jesus has created something that can renew itself and 
reveal itself afresh in every new age. It can be justly 
-said that the gospel of Jesus is no “ positive” religion 
like the others, that it has nothing statutory and _par- 
ticularistic about it,—that it is therefore religion itself 
(Harnack). 

7. Jesus had no contact with elements of extra-Israelitish 
wisdom and piety as far as we know, any more than with 
the scholastic wisdom among his people. Hence, he can 
be regarded as the personal completion of the prophetic 
piety of Israel. He has lived on the words of the prophets, 
above all on the Psalms. His “culture” has been a purely 


216 The Nature of Christianity 


Old Testament and popular one. And _in the villages and 
towns of Galilee where Jesus and his first disciples grew 
up, the tide of the advancing Hellenic spirit had scarcely 
any effect. But his work cannot, nevertheless, be under- 
stood without taking into consideration the spiritual process 
that for three centuries, chiefly through the contact of the 
Orient with Greek culture, had been dissolving and changing 
the form of the religious community of Israel. Not merely 
in Israel itself had there existed, alongside of the tendency 
toward a legal fossilization of religion, also a tendency 
toward its spiritualization. Greek spirit and Roman culture 
have unwittingly had a hand in the growth of Christianity. 
The national political background of the religion of Israel 
had, to be sure, long ago crumbled, and the old realm of 
David and Ahab had been transformed into a religious com- 
munity capable of a cosmopolitan extension. But before 
this the Roman state with its arms and its organization 
had crushed national spirit outside of Israel and with it the 
deepest life of national paganism. The world empire de- 
manded a world religion. Cults were mingled. Scepticism 
and euhemeristic rationalism had destroyed the religious 
assumptions of the old world. All Occidental religions 
were, we know, in their deepest nature national and based 
on a naive belief in the activity of deities in the_various 
natural phenomena. But the state religion that would theo- 
retically have been able to be that of the empire, was 
as a fact the special form of piety of that very state under 
whose iron sceptre the ancient races lay bleeding. Fur- 
thermore, the age, as it grew reflective, could no longer 
acquiesce in the complete absorption of individual moral 
personality in the idea of the state, after the free civic 
communities had been broken up. And amid the moral 


Jesus in fiistory 217 


degeneracy and the national catastrophes there was felt a 
longing for a religion of expiation and hope. Moreover, 
the races, Greeks and Romans, that politically and spiritu- _ 
ally ruled the world, no longer found peace in their old 
religious forms. Individuality, roused from its original 
naive satisfaction in what nature offered, demanded a cer- 
tainty that the nature religions could not supply. Cer- 
tainty of an eternal life lifted above the course of nature, 
consciousness of purification and reconciliation amid the 
ruin of morality and the impurity of which conscience 
more and more clearly accused men, such were the long- 
ings that stirred wider and wider circles of cultivated men. 
The popular religions offered them no satisfaction. So it 
was sought in secret cults and mysteries. Not merely in an- 
cient mysteries of their own religions, as in the mysteries of 
Eleusis, but by preference in foreign rites, dark and terrible 
ones that seized the fancy, as those of the Mithras cult. Men 
thronged to strange gods. And yet these artificial methods 
of satisfying the religious impulse, with their exaggerated 
excitement of the fancy and their apparatus of fantastic 
superstition, were, even for the small cultivated circles for 
whom they were accessible, void of any really convincing 
force. And for the people they had no significance what- 
ever. There was a longing for something real, for a real 
proclamation of the Godhead. Men had begun to expect 
it in a new and strange form. The time was fulfilled. 

8. Neither must the philosophic labors of the Greek 
spirit be overlooked among the conditions of the growth 
of Christianity, although not exercising their full and 
most significant effect on the spiritual history of existing 
Christianity until later. The school of Epicurus and 
that of the Sceptics contributed to the work of Jesus 


218 The Nature of Christianity 


only by their destructive mockery of the old popular 
. faith; in other respects they were the natural foes of 
Christianity, as of every vital religion. But what Plato 
and the Stoics had done prepared the way in many noble 
souls for the new life that was revealed in Jesus. How- 
ever little influence the ideas of the great Greek thinkers 
in their purity had at that time, nevertheless, the effect of 
the total view presented by them on wide circles of culti- 
vated men was great. Socrates’ moral seriousness, Plato’s 
lofty contempt for the world of sense, Aristotle’s valuation 
of the world in terms of reason, the Stoics’ idea of the 
Logos the spiritual monotheism of Anaxagoras, were. after 
all essential constituents of Greek culture. And yet this 
influence was unable of itself to give what the age de- 
manded and thus to anticipate in some degree the effect of 
Christianity on the minds of men. Greek wisdom had no 
consolation for the poor and wretched to offer, nor any 
hope that could found a church. It roused a need that 
only the gospel of Jesus could satisfy. Hence even when it 
later was organized anew as a rival for the rule of souls in 
New Pythagoreanism and New Platonism, the victory of 
the cross over such artificial systems was soon decided. 
But by its longing for satisfaction of the heart and for 
spiritual life in a world of pain and of unclean lusts it 
has won followers for Jesus. And even in Jesus’ time 
the ideas of Greek idealism were widely diffused in the 
Jewish world and afforded the new doctrine new forms 
intelligible even to the non-Israelite. Jesus and his first 
disciples did not know them and did not need them. 
But that they were familiar to a Saul of Tarsus and to 
the Jews of Ephesus and Alexandria, that they had in the 
Hellenic world built a bridge between Jewish faith and 


Jesus tn L1istory 219 


Greek thought, has after all been of high importance for 
the development of Christianity as a religion and for its 
fortunes. Just as Israel in that age dressed its sacred 
Scriptures in the garb of the language of the Hellenic 
world, so Greek thought offered it the means, in the doc- 
trine of inspiration and the art of allegorical interpretation, 
of introducing higher spiritual ideas into the old world of 
religious conceptions presented by popular religion. The 
philosophical conceptions of the Logos and of a world of 
ideas in which historic values have a spiritual existence 
before their appearance on earth, offered to the thought of 
young Christianity, to a Paul, a John, as well as to the 
author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, forms of thought in 
which to give expression to their belief in the heavenly 
value of the life realized in Jesus on earth, — forms 
adapted to transmit it through the centuries, even though 
in inadequate and often mistaken shape. 

But the one thing needed neither theories nor yearning 
wishes could bring, viz. a redeeming act, a personality in 

which God spoke to man, a human life that had a new 
divine and world-conquering content and was strong 
enough to rouse real religious faith. Jesus has been the 
Christ of Israel, and Christianity was born of the revealed 
religion of the Semites. But the noblest powers of Japhet 
have had to do their part. Jesus has been more than a 
prophet of Israel and more than Israel’s highest hope 
expected of its king. He is the revelation of God to the 
children of men. Thus Christianity is the world religion 
in which the religious and prophetic spirit of Shem is 
united to the philosophic and civilizing spirit of Japhet. 


—— 


220 The Nature of Christianity 


24. Christianity as Faith in Jesus the Christ 


1. That its founder must also be its religious centre, 
nay, its essential content, finds its justification in the 
deepest nature of Christianity. For the special kind of 
piety on which in this case religious happiness and joy in 
the world depend, is not conditioned by new knowledge 
or new forms of cult, but by the new relationship to God 
realized in Jesus’ personality and by the self-revelation of 
the divine will and purpose in Jesus and his life. It is 
born of a divine fact. Only in Jesus is the new and 
happy attitude to God an actuality; everywhere else it 
is only in process and an object of hope. Hence believers 
can profit by the gracious relation of God to man that 
conquers the world and sin, only by participation in the 
life of Jesus, never on the basis of their own personal 
life apart from him. The kingdom of God with its grace 
and power exists only in him and of him. Else it is a 
mere ideal, a cevitas platonica. Christian piety is the 
letting our own relationship to God be conditioned by 
Jesus and by the perfect community with God revealed 
by him; the feeling ourselves laid hold of and determined 
by God in Jesus’ human personality. In Christianity, as 
in every religion, God is the sole object of faith, but here 
he reveals himself to us in his Son as our Father. 

2. This characteristic of Christianity seems to many its 
really vulnerable spot. The centre of faith, that on which 
the assurance of “our own happy relationship to God 
rests, seems to be sought in something past, with which 
the individual, when all is said, comes in contact only in 
history and which therefore is subject to historical criticism 
and its variations. The further the church is removed 


Christianity as Fatth in Jesus the Christ 221 


from the age of its origin and the better scientific method 
learns to sift traditions of antiquity, the more must 
the past seem to lose its effect on the life of the 
soul. How can accidental truths of history be proofs of 
eternal spiritual truths? (Lessing). And how can the 
educated man bring himself to feel for a figure of the 
past the same frank inner devotion that the uneducated 
man feels for it by force of habit? Is it not better to con- 
ceive our relation to Jesus as analogous to the way in 
which the citizen of a state links his patriotism to the 
memory of the great heroes that created his country? 
Reverence and grateful loyalty are in both cases easy. 
But the happiness and security that the citizen now en- 
joys do not depend at all on his opinion of what once 
happened, nor on his own personal and spiritual attitude 
toward the founders of the state. And it seems still less 
possible that one’s own religious faith and one’s own 
happy communion with God can be based on a per- 
sonality and a life that have become objects of historical 
investigation. The uncultured mass of men, fettered by 
_the power of tradition and by authority, may confound 
the historical person of Jesus and the impression he 
made on the first disciples with the permanent religious 
influence proceeding from him which they accept as Chris- 
tianity. But it seems all the more necessary for the 
scientifically trained to distinguish Clearly between the 
two, and to be content with the one to which we our- 
selves can always lend new religious life, leaving the 
historical person of Jesus to historical criticism and 
assigning it its place, not in dogmatics, but in the intro- 
duction to it and in religious history. 

If religion were only a question of truths of reason, 


222 Lhe Nature of Christianity 


such ideas might be justified. Truths of reason approve 
themselves to the soul that receives them by their own 
evidence, no matter on whom they first dawned. And 
if Christianity were an institution, an organization, it 
would be able to go on existing and. exercising its benefi- 
cent effects by its own strength, independently of its 
founder. Accordingly the more logically the Roman 
Catholic view of the church is developed, the more inevi- 
tably must the historical Christ recede behind the organized 
forces of the church. But that God presents himself to 
sinners as a father who forgives their sins and summons 
them to community of effort with himself, is not a truth of 
reason. It is, on the contrary, a thing incredible in itself, a. 
thing of which we can be certain only if God himself, by the 
revelation of his will, offers us the assurance of it. And 
that can be experienced only historically, and only in a 
personality in which this gracious will bears unmistakable 
witness to itself amid the contradictions of the phenome- 
nal world, and in a life that makes man forever certain of 
the victory of that will over sin and death. Apart from 
this personality and this life, the Christian assurance of 
salvation becomes the sport of doubt and an illusory self- 
invented hope. 

And what the Christian possesses in his religion no 
ecclesiastical system with its mysterious powers and its 
hallowed rights can guarantee him. For God’s love must 
itself touch the soul immediately and deliver it from guilt 
and bondage to the world. That can come about only by 
human life itself entering into immediate communion with 
God’s life. But in every human institution there is only 
an approximate communion with God, one dimmed by sin 
and expressed symbolically in external forms. The soul 


Christianity as Faith tn Jesus the Christ 223 


can find God only if God addresses himself personally to 
the soul in the personality through which he reveals him- 
self for the purpose of establishing such communion. The 
church gets its power only from Jesus andin him. The 
spirit by which it works to renew and bless is his spirit 
and inseparable from him. Where personal communion 
with him is abandoned, the Holy Spirit becomes nothing 
more than the spirit of humanity and loses the power to 
beget religious peace. A Christianity in which Jesus should 
become a merely historical figure would cease to be what 
it has been for the living faith of all ages. 

But the difficulty that has led men to such thoughts 
proves, in fact, to be only an apparent one. For faith in 
the historical Christ does not at all involve deciding points 
of historical science, as, for instance, the problems with 
which the investigations of the life of Jesus have to deal. 
It is not at all a question of anything that scientific criti- 
cism could throw doubt upon, of anything merely past, but 
of an active personality that has stamped itself as living 
on the spiritual history of man, and whose reality as it is 
in itself any one can test by its effects, as immediately | 
as he can test the reality of the nature that surrounds | 
him and the relations in which he stands. is 

Jesus demands our faith, not as a once living person- 
ality of history, whose effects have ceased or are continued 
only in the form of doctrine or institution apart from it; 
nor as a transfigured personality that kindles in some 
strange way a mystical religious life in us. The believer 
will learn to accept both of these in all their truth and sig- 
nificance. But it is not this that Christian faith begets. 
Jesus of Nazareth has impressed his figure ineffaceably on | 
the spiritual history of mankind as the revelation of a new 


224 The Nature of Christianity 


and gracious relation between God and man and of a hith- 
erto concealed divine plan for man; first in the hearts 
of the disciples that attached themselves to him, then 
through them and their testimony in the circles that were 
accessible to their preaching and are so to-day. Thus he 
meets us also in the Scriptures of the New Testament. 
His figure appears in them, it is true, in the varying light 
of the views of his disciples. It has already become an 
object of doctrine and of embellished narrative. But still 
it is, beyond all doubt, Zzs personality, with effects such as 
he alone can have produced on his followers; unique and 
yet historically intelligible ; a unit and yet with its peculiar 
reflection for each one; absolutely new and yet purely hu- 
man; wholly divine and issuing commands in the name of 
God, and yet bound to us as our brother. This figure, the 
impression that the personality of Jesus has stamped on 
the spirit of mankind, is just as certain a fact as any phe- 
nomenon of nature of which we are assured by its actual 
presence. And what thus meets us is unquestionably 
Jesus’ still active figure and no other. It meets us in the 
devout with whom we associate, in the life of the church, 
and in Holy Scripture; but it is not born of the soul of the 
devout nor of the spirit of the church; it is through his fol- 
lowers that Jesus draws near the soul of every individual as 
a living and present friend. And in him, as in his own age, 
God draws near, disclosing to us his gracious will and ad- 
dressing to our consciences his questions. For Christi- 
anity there is no contradiction between the nature of belief 
and the significance of the historical Jesus. 
The historical doubt whether Jesus has spoken every 
one of the words and done all the works that are reported 
of him and whether his external life has been passed just 


Christianity as Faith in Jesus the Christ 22 5 


as the narratives of the early disciples report, detracts noth- 
ing from the assurance of faith; and just as little the con- 
viction, that the personality of Jesus is shown us, even by 
the earliest witnesses in the New Testament, in a doctrinal 
garb that in many respects must seem to us outlived and 
of a piece with the ideas of antiquity. The “theology” of 
the church of the disciples has as little decisive significance 
for our faith as do the results of the study of the life of 
Jesus. Faith cares only for that personality of Jesus 
from which that doctrine proceeded. It has to do only 
with the fact that in Jesus we find a nowhere else ex. 
isting revelation of the divine will and a nowhere else pos- 
tulated aim of human life; and that the impression made 
by these on our conscience compels us to accept or to re- 
ject him. The disciples, in distinction from their country- 
men, have chosen belief in this personality, not on the 
ground of compelling theoretic proofs (for else their country- 
men too would have believed), but impelled by the Holy 
Spirit, that is, by the divine power bearing witness to itself 
in their hearts and by the irresistible truth of the relation- 
ship of man to God that they saw in Jesus. In the same 
way anything that can really be called belief in Jesus must 
come about to-day. Whoever is in his soul conquered, 
judged, and made happy by this living and still working 
personality, for him Jesus is the Christ, zc. the personality 
which determines his relation to God and to which he feels 
himself in religious subjection. For him Jesus is the Son of 
God; in him God is our Father and we too become children 
of God. He knows God thereafter only in the man Jesus 
and has in him the assurance of the forgiving love of God, 
For him the kingdom of God is no longer a mere ideal, 
but an invisible reality ripening toward fulfilment and pro- 
Q 


226 The Nature of Christianity 


ceeding from Jesus. He believes in the rule of good in 
the world, although neither in himself nor others can he 
experience this rule empirically in its purity and beyond 
doubt. 

3. The belief of the disciples in Jesus as the Christ did 
not become full assurance until, by his death on the cross, 
the earthly and less precious elements of their attachment 
to his personality had been forcibly broken; and until, by 
the appearance of the Risen One, they became certain 
that he had gained the victory and was still exercising 
heavenly power. They now understood that the revela- 
tion of God in Him was not meant to realize earthly or 
national aims, but the spiritual kingdom of the good; and 
that in him they were to be united to God, not as earthly 
citizens are united to a national deity through an earthly 
king, but as eternal personalities through a spiritual and 
world-compelling power. The death on the cross became 
for them the victory over evil, the price of redemption, 
the sacrifice of the covenant and of atonement, the secret 
of the ways of God. The sacred institutions of their race 
became for them mysterious symbols of this greatest de- 
cisive act of salvation. And at the same time the ancient 
conception of a “community of life” of the clan with 
God in sacrifice (communio) was probably soon associated 
by them with the blood of the cross and the Last Supper 
with their Master. The resurrection seemed to them 
the seal of the grace of God, the liberation of Jesus 
from the limitations of the world, his passage into the 
kind of being proper to him. It was the condition of the 
omnipotent spiritual activity in behalf of the world of 
him who, till then, had been an earthly teacher in Israel. 
In this belief in Jesus, in his death and his resurrection, 


Christianity as Faith in Jesus the Christ 227 


is to be found the whole new content of original Christi- 
anity. But the disciples, believing as they did in Jesus, 
naturally included in their religious life all the new piety 
and morality revealed in him, perhaps without ever feeling 
that here a new humanity was born of a new spirit. 
Jesus as the Christ, the death on the cross as the gracious 
act of God, the resurrection as pledge and realization of 
the lordship of God’s children over the world, such was 
the first Christian faith. On it they expended their pro- 
foundest thought, and apart from all scientific impulse, 
could not help transforming the religious mystery into 
human doctrine. And in it the community of the chil- 
dren of God found their peace with God, their world- 
conquering power, and the heroism of hope. 

4. The faith that gives a man the right to account 
himself a member of the kingdom of God, and to enjoy 
its privileges, cannot to-day be other than this faith of 
the first disciples. It must rest on the religious impres- 
sion of the personality of Jesus still active in humanity, and 
must find in this the revelation of the gracious will of God 
toward us and of the victory of the good, a revelation to 
which the soul surrenders itself in trust and without 
reluctance, It must see in the death of Jesus the price 
of redemption, the sacrifice for unhappy and guilty hu- 
manity, and be certain that this death was a victory 
of Jesus, that it was for him the entrance on a trans- 
figured life and on a personal wielding of the powers of 
the spiritual world. No one can produce this faith by 
scientific arguments, nor can it be disproved by such argu- 
ments. Only the power of the divine in the personality of 
Jesus, as this presents itself to us, and the convincing 
truth of the divine love offered to us in it (the Holy Spirit) 


228 The Nature of Christianity 


can evoke it. But where faith has thus arisen, scientific 
scruples do not disturb it, even though they may make 
doubtful the historicity of certain miraculous accounts or 
of certain utterances of Jesus. It cannot even disquiet it 
_ to learn that the reports of the appearances of the Risen 
One, the descriptions of the form of his glorified life and 
the views of the manner of his resurrection, are very 
diverse, and show distinct traces of legend. It contents 
itself with the certainty that the Crucified has convinced 
his despondent disciples, as later Saul, that he still lived 
and reigned. It calmly leaves further questions to scholars, 
and knows that their answer has nothing to do with belief 
or disbelief; although the believer will certainly be in- 
clined to apply a different standard of historical proba- 
bility to Jesus’ personality and to the picture of his life, 
than the unbeliever or the indifferent use. Christianity is 
the religion of a God who is revealed in his Son Jesus 
as our Father and who bears witness to himself in his 
Spirit as the power that rules the world. It is the com- 
pletion and the supersession of the prophet religion of 
Israel. 

s. In the historical position and in the religious content 
of Christianity lay the springs of a rich spiritual develop- 
ment and of a boundless task for thought. In the first 
place, the question must arise of the relation of the Chris- 
tian religion to the religious claims of Israel. According 
to the spirit of the preaching of Jesus, the two no longer 
had any inner connection. But he himself, like his first 
disciples, had observed the external forms of the national 
and religious usages of Israel. And to many who believed 
in him this abiding by the sacred forms that they had held 
from youth up to be the will of God, seemed an indis- 


Christianity as Faith in Jesus the Christ 229 


pensable condition of the state of grace to be reached in 
Jesus. It is plain that here from the first many ways 
diverged. For some, Israel’s law was also the foundation 
for the franchise of the kingdom of heaven ; for others it 
was a pious obligation for those disciples of Jesus that 
were of Jewish blood, while for Christians from the pagan 
world only what made community between them and 
the Israelites impossible was forbidden (Peter, James). 
For Paul and his school faith was the end of the law. 
The law was a schoolmaster to bring men to Christ, and in 
the Christian age of grace only a prophecy of the perfect. 
Law and faith were mutually exclusive. The idealism of 
John looks on Christianity, the absolute religion of the 
Logos, as already far beyond the worn-out distinctions of 
Jew and Gentile, law and faith. For the Christian church 
it was a question whether its religion should be a world 
religion or a national sect. On the basis of Pauline and 
Johannine ideas it triumphantly maintained its universal 
Significance, at the same time rejecting with successful 
determination the exaggeration that aimed to guide Chris- 
tianity, freed from its national and _ historical] basis, into 
the current of the philosophy of the age (struggle with 
Gnosis), 

In the second place, the unique nature of the Christian 
scheme of redemption had to be more fully understood. 
That it consisted in the assurance of the favor of God 
directed toward us in Christ and at the same time de. 
manded a new fashion of human life according to the law 
of the spirit and of liberty, a walking in love, was of course 
the conviction of all ; and the devout man scarcely troubled 
himself at first about the relation of these two factors to 
one another. But the soundness of piety and the assurance 


230 The Nature of Christianity 


of redemption depended, nevertheless, on the question, 
whether the Christian should base his happiness simply on 
the firm ground of God’s love revealed in Christ, or should 
also make it dependent on the amount of agreement 
between his own conduct and the new life that came from 
Jesus. Where the second answer was given, the stand- 
point of legal religion had not been entirely outgrown, 
and under the conditions of the age a lapse into ascetic 
moralism or into legality could hardly fail to occur. The 
majority of the Christian communities of the first cen- 
turies have doubtless taken this latter stand, one that had 
in practice a character of loftiness and grandeur from its 
heroic power of faith and its joyous struggle with the 
world. All the more important was it that Paul was led 
by his peculiar training and by the nature of his conversion 
to emphasize the opposition of faith and works (justi- 
fication by faith) with clearness and energy. He used all 
his intellectual powers in behalf of the conviction that only 
he who accepts his salvation as a gift of God’s free grace 
through faith in Christ, wins the righteousness that counts 
in the eyes of God, and that the fruit of the blessed con- 
sciousness of peace with God is a new life of the spirit and 
of love. In doing this he has not,*to be sure, voiced the 
dogmatic formula of the Reformation, but at all events 
the principles that led to it. Equally significant was it 
that John found the essence of Christianity in believing 
love for the person of the incarnate Word of God, and 
proclaimed it with a loftiness before which all justification 
by works became null and void. In the presence of the 
new mind of the children born of God, who do not sin nor 
belong to the world, and who know that in the love they 
have in them they have passed from death unto life, the 


Christianity as Faith in Jesus the Christ 231 


old world of sacred forms falls to pieces of itself. Not by 
obeying a law, but as living branches of the vine Christ, 
do Christians bring forth fruit and fulfil the new com- 
mandment of Jesus. 

Lastly, faith in the significance of the person and the 
work of Christ urged irresistibly toward giving it definite 
shape in a world of advanced culture, one bred to philo- 
sophical thought. It is true that with this arose the new 
danger of confounding theological (scientific) formulas 
with the religious attitude (of faith) toward Jesus, and of 
regarding assent to them as the condition of saving mem- 
bership of the church. At first believers found satisfac- 
tion in faith in the royal glories of their master, and in 
the hope of his speedy reappearance, and lived their 
lives in expectation of the end. But this feature of 
eschatological enthusiasm, with its tendency to withdrawal 
from the world and contempt of culture, receded —in 
spite of the strong inclination to persist in it that found 
in Montanism its clearest expression — more and more 
as Christianity came to exercise its activity on whole races 
and through centuries. Its eternal and inalienable element 
was the pursuit of an ideal set high above all empirical 
reality, and the capacity of renouncing the world for 
the kingdom of God. As the eschatological tendency 
receded, instead of the world-ruling power of Jesus, the 
significance of his personality came to occupy the focus 
of religion. That in Jesus a divine reality, a revelation 
of God on earth, was to be revered, was certain to all 
Christians who had a full sense of what Jesus himself 
meant to be to his people; and that the divine in him 
was no mere rhetorical exaggeration, but the true nature 
of the one God himself, the church defended in hot strug- 


229 The Nature of Christianity 


gles on the basis of the thought of Paul and John, and 
formulated in its dogma of the Trinity. It understood 
that the historical person of Jesus can be, for him who 
looks on it as the revelation of God, nothing less than 
the historical form taken by the divine life stooping to 
reveal itself out of an eternal love for our humanity; that 
his transfiguration is the corporate form answering to 
his inmost essence; and that the new spirit proceeding 
from him must be God’s own spirit. Hence faith con- 
ceived of the one God as himself essentially present in 
the man Jesus and in the new life of the church proceed- 
ing from him, although God remained for it the deity 
existing in himself before all worlds. Piety was assured 
of being able to conceive of him as in the world, and yet 
of being able to worship him as God in contrast with the 
world. It is true that the early church, like the New 
Testament, gave this idea theological shape in the lan- 
guage and habit of thought of an age for us long past, and 
did not hesitate to make the mystery of the personality 
of Jesus tangible by ascribing his origin to a physical 
miracle. But these questions involved nevertheless an 
amount of toil and struggle that made impossible all 
inactivity of mind. Faith found here God in a man and 
therewith faced the deepest problem of all thought. It 
found in a work of man forces making for blessedness 
and eternal life, deliverance from the bondage of the 
world and sin, the annulling of the ancient curse of sin 
and guilt. So there was no important sphere of thought 
and of life that did not receive from this religion a 
new and unsuspected light. But at the same time the un- 
attainable loftiness of the ideal of life revealed in Jesus 
brought into the life of his followers the spur of the 


Christianity as Faith in Jesus the Christ 233 


repentance that knows no self-satisfaction and the moral 
enthusiasm that never lets us rest. The perception of the 
nature of true greatness that lies in faith in the divinity 
of Christ made false reverence for the illusory greatness 
of the world impossible. And the perfect freedom of the 
doctrine of Jesus from all legality and all perpetuating of 
ephemeral forms made room for every stage of culture 
and every peculiarity of national character. 

6. In this loftiness of Christianity lies also one of its 
peculiar dangers, the danger of confounding the belief 
itself that constitutes the Christian with the theological 
system by which the church has tried in the course of the 
centuries to comprehend this faith logically. It is true 
that the piety of the New Testament church itself has 
never fancied that the true religious relation to Jesus 
and the sharing the blessings of his life and death could 
depend on assent to a definite theological solution of the 
mystery of his personality or on a logically correct con- 
ception of the effect of his death. But this false path 
lay near at hand and was soon trodden. And the health- 
ful development of the Christian church depends on 
whether it is able to renounce it consistently. The Ref- 
ormation raised its protest against our salvation being 
bound to human doctrine, but did not carry it out logically 
— the conditions of the age made that impossible. Chris- 
tianity can retain its health and its imperishable signifi- 
cance only if it distinguish clearly and decisively the 
gospel, as an object of faith, from doctrine as an object 
of logical knowledge. To have Christ by faith does not 
mean the holding fast a ready-made Christological for- 
mula, —the New Testament itself presents the one faith 
in him in the most various gradations. It means the sur- 


234 The Nature of Christianity 


render of oneself in trust to him and in him to the God 
to whose reality he witnesses, and the letting the life of 
the soul be determined by him. And to believe in Christ’s 
atoning work does not mean the acceptance of a definite 
soteriological theory. Even in the New Testament there 
is the greatest variety of metaphors and images, in part 
mutually inconsistent, to wake and keep alive the sense 
of this blessed mystery. It means only the being certain 
that in Christ God has become our Father, that his 
death has been God’s revelation of grace for the conquest 
of sin and the escaping of condemnation, and that by this 
death Jesus has become lord in the realm of the spirit. 

7. The greatest danger of Christianity is, now as at 
the beginning, that either it be severed from its historical 
foundation and certain of its ideas be mingled with the 
smooth current of worldly wisdom (Gnosis, Rationalism), 
or that some stage in which it has once won new empiri- 
cal development be taken as identical with Christianity 
itself (Roman Catholicism, sectarianism). The weapon 
of the church against both dangers is the possession of 
sacred Scripture. The Christian principles of interpreta- 
tion, if rightly understood, can never see in any develop- 
ment of the thought of the Biblical writers a piece of 
final knowledge, or wish to withdraw the narratives and 
statements contained in the Bible from historical and 
philological criticism. Even in Scripture it is only the 
personality of Jesus as we meet it there that has religious 
cogency. As Jesus’ witnesses, proclaiming what they have 
experienced through him, the men of the New Testament 
are religious authorities to us. Meeting Jesus in their 
words, we feel that the spirit of God breathes upon us 
from their writings. Where they narrate, pass judgments, 


Christianity as Faith in Jesus the Christ 235 


frame doctrines, as individual personalities, they are for 
us the first and most venerable representatives of the 
church of Jesus and nothing more. But the principles of 
interpretation demand that we treat Christianity as an 
historical religion, that is, seek in its original historic form 
the comprehension of its nature. Where pseudo-gnosti- 
cism tries to transform Christianity from an_ historical 
religion into a temporary form of secular culture and 
religious philosophy, the recognition of the Old Testa- 
ment as a constituent part of the canon bids it pause, and 
demands that the historical roots of the new religion be 
not overlooked. Where a definite system of church doc- 
trine is made into a law for the church, the New Testa- 
ment protests, and claims for the original impression of the 
person and the life of Jesus the exclusive right to such 
authority (documents). And the depth of Pauline and 
Johannine thought protects Christianity against moralistic 
and rationalistic shallowness. The recognition of Scrip- 
ture as a canon includes the principle that all forms of 
the church’s knowledge and practice are to be gauged by 
it; by asking whether they really correspond to the living 
revelation of God that we find in Jesus and to the original 
impression on which the church was built. Hence it 
makes it impossible to regard any later form of Christi- 
anity as the norm and final. Thus Holy Scripture, as the 
record of the birth of the Christian religion and of the 
preparation for it, is the final norm for everything that 
can call itself Christian faith and Christian life. 


PAR Tell CHRISTIANIDY A Lite ERE EC Dp 
RELIGION 


SECTION I: CHRISTIANITY THE REVELATION OF PERFECT 
SALVATION 


25. The Kingdom of God 


1. THAT Christianity, as an historical religion, is far 
superior to the other religions of mankind, if it be re- 
garded as a whole, would hardly need any special proof, 
even for those who in certain details were inclined to give 
one of the other higher religions the precedence, for in- 
stance, Buddhism or Islam. No one among us thinks 
seriously of abandoning Christianity for some other ex- 
isting religious faith, The only question for us lis, 
whether it can be shown that in our religion we possess 
that realization of man’s relation to God, in which the reli- 
gious need and the longing of which the religious process 
in man is born, can find full and final satisfaction; so that 
he who wishes to be pious must feel himself compelled 
to be a Christian, and he who is a Christian need not fear 
being led by his further development beyond Christianity. 

Of late this task has been put aside as hopeless. Now, 
as Christians we shall be ready to admit that in historical 
Christianity the final perfect revelation of God and the 
final absolute redemption of man that Holy Scripture 
teaches us to expect at the end of time, are not yet to be 
found (Bender). It can only be a question of what reve- 

236 


Lhe Kingdom of God 237 


lation is the highest for earthly humanity bound to the 
measure of earthly piety. But from the nature of the 
historical method the deduction has been drawn that we 
must look on Christianity, as on the other great religions, 
only as a purely historical and hence relative phenome- 
non, although, like all religions, it has felt itself to be 
absolute. At most we are justified in regarding the 
Christian religion as the crown of all preceding religions 
and as the ground and presupposition of all clear and 
vigorous religious life of the future, and in denying the 
probability of its becoming outworn or sundered from its 
historical basis (Troltsch). It might perhaps seem as if 
one who in his own religious feelings knew himself moved 
by the religious power in Jesus! might content himself 
theoretically with such a verdict; since the pious man, 
after all, needs only the certainty “of being on the 
right road and of following the right star.’ But in 
reality the peculiar way in which Jesus moves the soul’ 
does not admit of such resignation. He comes to us 
as “God’s Son” and as “our Lord.” For him who 
recognizes this claim, even the mere theoretic possibility 
that Jesus could be given up in favor of a better justified 
personality of the future, must seem an act of disloyalty 
and make true faith impossible. Now, it must, it is true, 
seem a false method to gauge the value of Christianity 
by any @ friori ideal of religion. But when a normal 
conception of human religion has been gained from 


1The absoluteness of Christianity lies solely in the individualization and 
humanizing of religion that we find in Jesus’ own faith and experience and in 
his demand on our souls; and in the complete separation of the higher and 
eternal world! of necessity from the earthly and transitory one. The person- 
ality of Jesus is one of the great fundamental mysteries of reality. For him 
who accepts the God of Jesus it is the greatest (Trdltsch), 


238 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


religious history, it must be possible and justifiable to 
apply it to the historical material presented by Chris- 
tianity, and so to assure ourselves that as Christians we 
in fact possess that which human piety needs and to 
which the course of religious history has led. It is true 
that, even in Christianity, the ruling idea is always in- 
tertwined with definite historical conditions, and the his- 
torical coloring extends even to the “content and ideals — 
of life that are formed in the depths of the soul.” But 
this cannot hinder us from distinguishing what the history 
of Christianity shows us to be its real content and its es- 
sence from its temporal individual coloring, and regarding 
this by itself. If we “are confident that the victory will 
rest with the purest and deepest purposive ideas” and 
may hold “that religion in its principles has already 
revealed itself,” it will also be possible to put this con- 
fidence and this conviction in a clearer light. There 
can, of course, be no talk of a “scientifically cogent 
proof.” 

Christian apologetics is far from holding the opinion 
that an unbeliever could first, moved by rational considera- 
tions, decide in favor of religion in general, and then, 
convinced by insight into the advantages of Christianity, 
choose the latter. Whoever arrives at Christian faith, does 
so because his soul is not satisfied with itself nor with the 
world; because he has learned from the impression made 
by the person of Jesus the reality of the good, and feels 
the peace that comes from the revelation of the loving will 
of God. The assurance of the reality and truth of our 
Christian fellowship with God rests therefore, at bottom, 
on a personal consciousness of redemption founded on the 
revelation of God that we find in Jesus. And this must 


Lhe Kingdom of God 239 


enter into the experience of every Christian as something 
of present significance to him. Never can he base his 
Own assurance ona process of logical proof and its success. 
But in so far as he is a thinking man, he must be able to 
give a clear account to himself why his religion can make 
the claim, not merely to be the relatively most perfect 
among those that have existed hitherto, but the sole 
pure and unsurpassable manifestation of religion to 
mankind. The once common proof from the external 
form of the history of revelation, or from the divine char- 
acter of the sacred Scriptures, is at present excluded. A 
metaphysical proof cannot come into consideration at all. 
God meets us in history in his will directed toward us in 
Christ. It can therefore be a question only of making 
the fact that Jesus has won our confidence intelligible also 
toreason. To this end we must not insist on special 
points in the religious theory or in the moral concep- 
tions of Christianity. For in such details not infrequently 
lower religions stand comparatively high, and much more 
perfect ones rather low. The Old Testament in its 
national particularism and its external ordinances stands 
below Buddhism and Islam, and in its “ this-worldliness ”’ 
below the Egyptian religion. The grand idea of the 
purification of the world existed among the Germanic 
races alongside of elements of primitive nature religion. 
In its monotheism and its devotion to God, Islam stands 
apparently at the head of all religions. And Christianity 
itself leaves the widest room for progress and further de- 
velopment in dogmatic and ethical questions, in accordance 
with the whole nature of its origin. It can be a question 
only of the decisive religious principle itself. Man seeks 
in religion, through fellowship with the self-revealing God, 


240 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


c 


the satisfaction of his personality by means of goods the | 
world cannot give him. Hence the perfection of a religion 
depends (1) on whether this satisfaction is real and com- 
plete; (2) on the way in which the reality of the divine is 
made plain. Both are disclosed together in Christianity 
in the person of Christ and in the effects that proceed from 
him. But Jesus himself has merged the estimate of his 
personality in his announcement of the kingdom of God; 
just as in the Old Testament, not the form of the com- 
ing king, but that of the kingdom in which God is re- 
vealed, forms the starting-point for hope. And, now as 
then, Jesus touches the pious man vitally only as the circle 
of a new humanity proceeding from Jesus opens itself to 
him. “The gaining of Christian assurance through the 
church is not only the usual, but the only possible, 
method” (Herrmann). Hence it is proper for apologetics 
to begin, not as the practical presentation of piety must 
do, with the personality of Jesus as the perfect revelation, 
but with the kingdom of God proceeding from him as the 
perfect satisfaction of human need. In doing this we use 
the phrase “kingdom of God” simply for the new religious 
and moral organization of humanity proceeding from Jesus 
and existing among us as an invisible reality, carrying with 
it the assurance of its ultimate completion. The question 
of Biblical theology concerning the limits within which 
Jesus himself has used the expression, we leave completely 
aside. | 

2. The highest good, in the sense of religion, must in- 
clude in it the satisfaction of the individual spiritual per- 
sonality, and at the same time the perfecting of human 
fellowship, through fellowship with God and as the 
result of a divine act of revelation. Hence religion, as 


The Kingdom of God 241 


long” as it remains nature religion, cannot give the true 
good at all. For if the divinity is himself a part of the 
world, he cannot raise personality above the world nor 
make it free. And the highest spiritual aim cannot be 
realized at all by a divine that is itself in any way 
akin to nature and that has not created the world 
for spiritual ends. From the world of nature, working 
according to its own laws, salvation of the rational per- 
sonality can never come. 

In the primitive nature religions this is plain. In them 
the divinity still lacks all moral character, and no one 
thinks of a final purpose for personality or in the world. 
Man aims at only a purely natural control of individual 
conditions by magical means. But even in the culture 
religions of paganism the situation is logically not differ- 
ent. It is true that in them the gods always subserve 
moral ends, above all the ends of popular communal life, 
as well as their own. And although they themselves re- 
main inextricably bound up with natural phenomena, never- 
theless the great ordinances of the state and the family, 
the sanctity of oaths and of marriage, the inviolability of 
hospitality, are concerns of the gods and protected by 
religious awe. Almost everywhere in these religions the 
majesty of law is connected with divine ordinance, the 
royal power with the divine. Thus the thought of a king- 
dom of God appears on earth in the most varied shapes 
(Egypt, Babylon, Rome, China), but still only as a 
prophecy and a dim external picture. For this kingdom of 
God is from the start limited, like the gods themselves, 
by natural conditions. It is in its very nature primarily 
national, and where it aims to become universal, it tries 
to diffuse itself by physical force and by the subjugation 

BR 


242 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


of other nations. It remains always “of this world,” 
a civitas mundi in Augustine’s sense. And its aim is 
solely to realize the fundamental conditions of law 
and of morals necessary to the social life of man. But 
the moral nature of personality itself, as far as the latter 
is not involved in effort for the good of the state, 
does not come into consideration at all. Moral person- 
ality does not become free in God from the world, 
as it seeks to become in religion. It remains hopelessly 
entangled in the conditions of physical life in general, 
and in the limits set it by birth and social conditions in 
particular. As member of a “ kingdom of God” in which 
he is placed by purely natural conditions, man is bound 
religiously, too, to a mass of purely natural relations, 
and limited by them. All sorts of merely natural forms 
crowd into the shrine of the religious life as “ele- 
ments of the world,’ in the shape of ritual injunctions, 
sacred usages having to do with external conduct and 
remnants of old customs grown unintelligible. On 
the other hand, in his inmost life man can remain a 
“natural man.” The fellowship with divinities that are 
everywhere interwoven with the life of nature cannot 
raise him above the standards of the natural. Hence 
society, too, on this religious plane can have only an un- 
certain and defective control of the world. Since it rests 
on natural conditions, its joy in life is suffused with doubt 
and pessimism. Hence it looks backward or forward 
to a Golden Age. And the highest good that nations 
at this stage hope for and aim at excludes, not includes, 
the aims of other nations. It is not an ideal of love, 
but of selfishness. For the law of everything natural 
is selfishness and conflict. As to the gods, so to the 


Lhe Kingdom of God 243 


kingdom of God, there always clings a remnant of 
natural being that is not absorbed in the idea of the 
good. Hence the last word of nature religion, as soon 
as it comes in contact with a really highly developed 
ethic, is the atheism of Buddha. 

3. Even the prophet religions, so far as they still 
have a national character, that is, are closely linked to 
the mother soil of nature religion, must share the just 
enumerated defects of paganism. Thus the Persian and 
the older Israelitic religion have in them many traits of 
nature religion. In them, too, the divine purpose is limited 
by national boundaries and prejudices, and secular forms 
and ordinances appear alongside of the moral as essential 
for entering into relation with the divinity. The signifi- 
cance of the moral personality and the qualitative distinc- 
tion between moral and natural actions have not yet attained 
to clear expression. But every prophet religion must, 
nevertheless, as such, bring with it a better comprehension 
of the highest good than is possible in nature religions. 
When a revelation of God is received in the soul of a man 
of religious genius, and communicated by him to those 
about him, it must, from its very nature, appeal to every 
human personality. For what the human soul has itself 
experienced has validity for every human life. And it 
can, in its real purport, have only a moral appeal and one 
addressed to the spiritual life of personality. For only 
the spiritual can address itself to the soul and be really 
experienced within. Thus all genuine prophet religions 
aim, even though unconsciously, at becoming religions of 
“mankind” and at subordinating external physical activi- 
ties to moral and personal ones. The religious history 
contained in the Old Testament exhibits this process of 


244 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


evolution from the natural and national to the spiritual and 
universal in its purest form. But also among the Per- 
sians such a tendency is unmistakable in the strong 
emphasis laid on the moral, and in the universality 
of its hopes. In Islam, Buddhism, and Christianity the 
national and particularistic character of the kingdom of 
God is completely done away with. And in these three 
religions morality claims decisively to be the centre of 
religious purpose. In the prophetic development of the 
Old Testament religion the overcoming of naturalistic 
and ceremonial elements of piety by the ethical forms 
the real centre of prophetic activity, and in Christianity 
all such traces of nature religion are eliminated from the 
real religious life, as shadow and prototype. What comes 
from the heart, not what goes in at the mouth, defiles 
a man. Sacrifices and ceremonies are transformed into 
worship in spirit and in truth. The Sabbath and sacred 
offerings have to give way to love for one’s neighbor 
and the duties of kindness. It is true that most of the 
ecclesiastical developments of Christianity have, in this 
respect, not kept on the high level of Christian principle. 
Only evangelical Christianity has ventured to consistently 
maintain the full grandeur of the New Testament thought. 
For it, as for Jesus, the world-ruling and the world-con- 
quering power of the good is the real content of the 
kingdom of God. 

4. In Islam the secret will of God to which the pious 
man bows is not identical with the moral ideal. It remains 
the mysterious will of the highest Power, for whom there 
can be no laws. Man does not consciously promote the 
purpose of God, he simply accepts it, without understand- 
ing or appreciating it. Hence in Islam the highest vigor 


Ihe Kingdom of God 245 


of the soul is not aroused, the force of moral action is 
checked. And moral action is furthermore obscured by 
all sorts of morally indifferent elements. And the moral 
idea does not assert itself without Many compromises with 
the flesh. The grace of God that forgives the penitent 
appears as a “natural benevolence” that, provided God’s 
own honor is not offended, “demands not the hard but the 
easy, and quickly pardons. So there is neither a just 
and radical “repentance,” nor a new and happy life of 
new birth and sanctification. Lastly, the kingdom of God 
of Islam is bound to the conditions of law and civilization 
of ancient Arabian life. Hence it has in itself an influence 
hostile to culture and checks progress. For every exter- 
nal form that has grown up in time must grow old, and, if 
it cannot change, become the enemy of true development, 
And Islam tries to assert itself as a temporal power that 
accomplishes its ends by temporal means, that TS it 
depends on temporal conditions, Even the eschatological 
ideal of the highest good does not in Islam coincide with 
the realization of the good in human society, but consists 
in the sensual, and so temporal, satisfaction of the indi- 
vidual, and hence is entirely eudzemonistic and egoistic. 

The defects of Buddhism lie in another quarter. In 
it the highest good really seems accessible to every 
man, quite aside from his temporal condition. The power 
by which its “kingdom of God” is diffused is the spiritual 
power of the word. Its heroes carry, not the sword, 
but the alms-bowl. And whatever asceticism and special 
temporal forms its ideals stil] include, these are asserted 
to be not in themselves constituents of the highest 
good, but only the means of attaining it. They are either 
necessary to self-deliverance from the illusion of the world, 


246 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


or are an expression of pity for the sufferings of living 
creatures. And in the case of Buddha personality, on at- 
taining the highest good, is entirely freed by the power of 
faith from the bonds of the world. But this good is not the 
revelation of a divine and benevolent will, but a result of 
the self-knowledge of the human spirit. It is therefore, at 
bottom, conceived not religiously, but philosophically. And 
the belief in the victory of the good over the world is not 
founded, as in religion, on fellowship with God, but arises 
from comprehension of the power existent in humanity to 
free itself from the misery of existence. Above all, the 
highest good is something purely negative. It is not a 
question of possessing by faith something absolutely valu- 
able, but of getting rid of something worthless and pur- 
poseless. Personality aims, not to rule the world, but to 
get free from it by fleeing it. Thus all joy in action is 
lamed. The world itself remains for this religion a dark, 
insoluble riddle. Hence even the moral features of 
the world have no real place in this ideal. State, mar- 
riage, society, art, industries, and labor are in themselves 
worthless, nay, they are incompatible with the true realiza- 
tion of the highest good. And the sole knowledge of 
value is that of the misery of existence and of the way of 
escape from it. The perfectd of Buddhism are cut off from 
all connection with the civilized interests of mankind. 
Thus this religion, too, has only a destructive effect on cul- 
ture, because the world as material for moral effort is not 
included in its ideal. And the highest good of Buddhism 
has, like that of Islam, a thoroughly isolating effect. It 
begets a higher form of selfishness, like all philosophical 
systems that see the highest goal in the independence of 
the individual of the external world. It is true there lies 


The Kingdom of God 247 


in the redeeming love of the Buddhas, and in the mood of 
pity for all suffering in the world, something that appar- 
ently leads above egoism to love. But this pity is after 
all only a substitute for love, for it knows no lofty com- 
mon effort. And with the actual attainment of the highest 
good in the sense of Buddha, all fellowship will be abol- 
ished. The soul rises to liberty alone. Hence the Bud- 
dhist ideal is an absolutely insufficient one, if only because 
the common goal and the goal of the individual are com- 
pletely independent of one another. The Buddhist goal 
is that of eudzmonism, but in the negative sense that 
results from pessimism. 

5. The Christian “kingdom of God” offers the full 
satisfaction that religion demands. It is, like the highest 
good of Islam and of Buddhism, without national or 
political limits; like that of Buddhism, without temporal 
means and ends; like that of Islam, a positive and hope- 
ful one. And it reveals in the absolutely perfect highest 
aim of personality at the same time that of human society. 
The highest good of religion must (1) lie absolutely above 
the world, with its aims and conditions. For else it cannot 
guarantee personality its freedom from the world. As 
long as it has a worldly character, man remains bound in 
spirit to the world and included in its negation. But 
the highest good must (2) be able to be realized in the 
world. For else the world remains an obstacle to the 
true good. Therefore it must be able to realize moral 
freedom and religious happiness in the world and in spite 
of the world. Only thus can it deliver from the world, 
without producing the ecstatic, ascetic, and unprogressive 
frame of mind that makes a sound and vigorous national 
life impossible. The kingdom of God in Christianity 


248 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


answers both demands. It is, on the one hand, a per- 
fect reality, grasped by hope and lying absolutely above 
the world, one revealed by God. The eschatological ele- 
ment of primitive Christianity is an inseparable part of 
this religion, and the tendency that would like to abolish 
it, instead of merely freeing it from its fantastic garb 
woven of ephemeral elements, must be held to be a falsi- 
fying of Christianity. But it is just as much an invisible 
spiritual reality, grasped by faith in the midst of the world, 
and thus the redeeming power over the ills of the world 
and the might to rule this world morally. In the per- 
sonality of Jesus and in the effects proceeding from it, it 
has established its reality even in the eyes of a reluctant 
humanity. In the certainty of the pardoning paternal love - 
of God, that is, in the guarantee of the eternal worth of 
his own personality in the eyes of God, the Christian has 
the bliss that is the essence of a share in God’s kingdom, 
although he may lack worldly happiness. He knows that 
to them that love God all things are for the best, and can 
exult even in sorrow. In prayer he feels himself lord of 
the world. In the moral task he acts as fellow-laborer 
with almighty God. Thus the kingdom of God is at once 
a revelation of a supernatural act of God and a common 
moral effort of the community. 

6. The highest good of religion must reveal itself as 
God’s own purpose in the world. Else it cannot offer 
true world-conquering joy and assurance of victory as a 
permanent and perfect goal. But at the same time it 
must approve itself to the heart and conscience as the 
necessary and highest aim of our own personality. For 
else it cannot bring inward freedom, but only love of 
reward or servile fear. The kingdom of God, as it is 


The Kingdom of God 249 


revealed in Christianity, appears as the realization of the 
eternal thought of God himself. The Logos by whom the 
world was created meets us here in a human and histori- 
cal form. The spirit who works in this realm as the 
spirit of human fellowship is God’s eternal Spirit in whom 
he knows himself. That the human fellowship proceeding 
from the man Jesus is God’s own purpose with man is, of 
course, the fundamental thought that the dogma of the 
divinity of Christ aims to express. Thus in the kingdom 
of God the “heteronomy ” of Christianity meets us in its 
most sublime form. But this kingdom is realized in a 
personality of eternal significance, one that draws near 
the soul of every man and in which the conscience must 
of itself recognize its own deepest demand. Thus it 
can be accepted inwardly through religious conviction, 
and work as the satisfaction of the deepest postulates of 
the moral personality itself. In this kingdom of God, 
therefore, the autonomy of morality is also perfectly pre- 
served. The Christian does not surrender himself ser- 
vilely to a foreign ideal, but he is joyfully conquered by 
his own ideal. In the unity of motive (of the Spirit) the 
church becomes one with God, and God is revealed as 
love. 

7. The highest good cannot consist in the egoistic satis- 
faction of the individual, not eveninits nobler forms. Else 
it could not be the all-uniting principle that true morality 
demands. Egoism is a severing principle. And only the 
good in which all other moral goods are also contained can 
be really the highest. But it must realize, along with the 
highest aim of the moral community, also the highest per- 
sonal aim of each individual, that is, must guarantee him 
the bliss in which all other true happiness is also contained. 


250 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


For moral personality must never be understood as a mere 
means for fellowship. In the Christian kingdom of God 
the highest moral fellowship is the absolute goal to which 
every individual aim and every egoistic happiness must be 
unreservedly sacrificed. But at the same time the individ- 
ual knows that he gains his soul in this sacrifice, that is, 
realizes his own highest personal ends, — not his individual 
temporal ends, not the happiness his senses long for, but 
the ends of his moral personality itself, in which he has all 
(treasure in the field, pearl, the one thing needful). 

~ §. The highest good must not involve the renunciation 
of the moral tasks of life. For else it destroys all power 
of moral action and keeps personality, through fear and 
disinclination, in constant dependence on the world. The 
egoism that flies the world is just as contrary to morals as 
that devoted to the pursuit of worldly pleasures. While 
worldliness enslaves personality by the chain of desire, the 
negation of the world enslaves by the chain of fear. The 
world may, it is true, be negated as world, but not as the 
material for moral action offered us by God. But just as 
little may the highest good take the form of an external 
worldly organization, such as state, church, and society. 
For then, being itself the absolutely highest aim, it must 
deprive other moral organizations of all value. The state 
will become the servant of religious interests. Civilization 
will take the stamp of an unchangeable and uniform eccle- 
siasticism. And along with moral and religious ends, 
purely worldly ends of policy, of greed, and of ambition 
will be aimed at (Islam). The highest good must sub- 
sume worldly means and forms in itself as a thing above 
the world, and include changeable worldly conditions in its 
unchangeable eternal purpose. 


The Kingdom of God 251 


The Christian kingdom of God is not of this world. 
It is an invisible community that finds its expression in 
all moral communities, but is not identical with them, and 
whose motives must underlie all moral action in order to 
give the latter true moral character. The love that is 
revealed in Christ has nothing at all to do with worldly 
conditions. It is the principle of fellowship itself, joy in 
the good. It is not the impulse to fellowship that arises 
from worldly interests and special tastes, and that is found, 
in different stages and of very unequal value, everywhere 
in the world. It is the effort, born of faith in the love of 
God and in the highest goal for man, to achieve moral 
fellowship with all men, since they are created to this end, 
and to promote a common advance toward the highest goal. 
Its sign is the cross, its purest form love of our enemies. 
It is absolutely above the world. It can therefore never 
be the sole motive to evoke a special action, nor urge to 
activity as a special motive along with others. But no 
action is Christian in which this love is not the ultimate 
and decisive motive. It must inspire the Christian even 
where he is compelled to stand up for his own rights or 
those of his friends, or to face the injustice and falsity of 
others with reproof, contradiction, and honest Opposition, 
aiming at the welfare of another and the possibility of 
true moral fellowship by conflict with him. And the fellow- 
ship of men promoted by this motive, that is, by pleasure 
in moral fellowship with men simply as men, can never be 
an external reality. In the actual world men act together 
only under certain given conditions, as fellow-citizens or 
strangers, rulers or subjects, as they are guided by the same 
or by contradictory worldly interests, as placed in various 
family circumstances, or determined by like or incompatible 


252 | Christianity the Perfect Religion 


tastes. Only when the kingdom of God was realized on 
earth as a principle, that is, as an ideal in opposition to the 
world, did it take its stand in distinction from all external 
worldly organizations; only in Jesus himself do we find 
the picture of the fellowship of the new spiritual humanity 
that shone in his personality and from it with a heavenly 
radiance upon the earth. And only in Jesus, only as this 
new humanity is revealed in him and proceeds from him 
(z.e. in his redemptive work), do we see the love that is the 
motive in the kingdom of God manifested as the omnipo- 
tent, all-determining motive of the whole life-purpose of a 
personality. The kingdom of God that proceeds from him 
can never be a concrete reality on earth, neither as state 
nor as church, neither as family nor as society. And on 
the other hand, no external moral community is Christian 
in which this kingdom does not work as the highest impel- 
ling and ruling aim, and where it is not involved in a steady 
process of realization. Thus Christianity forbids none of 
the moral fellowships. But it fills each one with an eter- 
nal content, and excludes from it the merely worldly ele- 
ment as one destined to pass away. It cannot grow old, 
for its highest good is bound to no transitory conditions 
of history and culture, but gives its confessors the happy 
certainty of living for an eternal purpose and of gaining 
imperishable goods. It knows no unchangeable statutes, 
institutions, or customs. But it furnishes an eternal prin- 
ciple of morality that can beget ever new stages of culture. 
It does not aim to abolish or change the principles of moral- 
ity that proceed fromthe reason. But it gives them, through 
the love that is born of God and manifested in Christ, a 
moral power that is above reason, that renews everything 
and lifts morality above the standards of the world. He 


The Kingdom of God 253 


who understands this knows also that Christianity must 
cease to be the perfect religion, whenever the kingdom of 
God takes the form of an organized state with laws and 
methods of enforcing them; or when the fruits of human 
culture are looked on with distrust and indifference; or 
when the renunciation of possessions by certain moral 
communities in imitation of Jesus’ poverty or of older 
ecclesiastical forms of the Christian life is looked on as 
the mark of true Christianity. Only the spirit of God that 
is liberty can remain unchanged. Only as understood in 
the evangelical sense is Christianity the perfect religion. 

g. In the kingdom of God, as it is revealed in Chris- 
tianity, the highest needs of personality and the decisive 
demands of conscience are satisfied. Moral personality 
gains the power to rule the world through faith in the 
revelation of God in Christ. He who is embraced by 
God’s love knows that no worldly power can harm his 
personality, and that no region of the world created by 
God can be denied him asa field for moral action. The 
true negation of the world (the dying to the mind ruled 
by the world) and its true affirmation (“All is yours if 
ye are Christ’s”’) come together of themselves. The lord- 
ship of the world is not realized by worldly means nor for 
worldly ends, but by religion, by the power of God, and 
for the highest ends of moral personality in moral fellow- 
ship. The highest personal goal, which is at the same 
time the goal of the community, hovers as an ideal guaran- 
teed by God’s promise before hope’s soul and gives it 
strength to act and to endure. It lives asan invisible reality 
in the souls of believers, and gives their conduct a secret 
meaning and an eternal value. And it needs only believ- 
ing devotion to the will of God toward man as revealed in 


254 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


Jesus to belong to this kingdom. Hence, that at which 
religion, as religion, aims and in which its inner neces- 
sity lies, is here presented in an absolutely perfect form 
and one capable of no further development. Moral per- 
sonality becomes free from the world, in the midst of the 
world’s causal law, through faith in the God revealed to 
it in the redeeming love of Jesus; in the God who is love 
and life, who has created the world for the kingdom of the 
good and realizes it omnipotently, personality is assured 
of its value and its eternal goal, and happy even though 
“through hope.” And it has the power to rule this world 
‘morally as God’s world, in God’s spirit, as the inalienable 
task of all genuine ethics demands. He who does not 
hold religion to be illusion, must, if he thinks logically, 
become a Christian, and a Christian in the sense of the 
free evangelical conception of Christianity. To show the: 
highest good, in the sense of Christianity, in Jesus’ person- 
ality and to proclaim it by deed, is the sole way that 
promises success for missions in the realms of Islam and 
of Buddhism. Dogmatic instruction can there count on 
no result at all. | 


26. Deductions from the Christian Idea of the Highest Good 


1. Religion and Morality— As long as the highest good 
has not been rightly revealed, religion and morality must 
walk beside one another more or less estranged. From 
the common weal of society and from practical reason 
there arise everywhere demands on the action of the indi- 
vidual. The actions that bring honor and advantage to 
society and promote the welfare of its members appear in- 
creasingly praiseworthy to the reason. Breach of faith, 


1 Theol. Studien und Kritiken, 1883, pp. 60 ff. 


Deductions from the Christian Idea 25% 


cowardice, disobedience of existing authorities, lack of loy- 
alty, wanton neglect of the family, offences against domes- 
tic decency and modesty, are condemned by it everywhere. 
It has in it an instinct for “moral love” of the good. But 
such morality has in ‘itself no real connection with the 
nature deities and their arbitrary will, nor with the actions 
that aim to secure the favor of these deities. And the 
inner life of the individual himself is scarcely involved at 
all in the moral demands of society. Conscience recedes 
completely behind dominant usage. 

A union of religion and morality begins, it is true, even 
here by inner necessity at various points. The mere rous- 
ing of the joy of sacrifice and of renunciation in the ser- 
vice of the gods, even though egoistic in intention, helped 
strengthen morality. Above all, wherever the cult de- 
veloped in close connection with the traditions of the 
family and the clan, the great interests of the clan were 
necessarily closely bound up with it. The worship of an- 
cestors strengthened piety, and thereby some of the most 
important elements of moral nobility and of the family 
life. And the usual close connection between civic and 
religious aims introduced into the life of the ancient city 
an element that lifted men above caprice and license, and 
that impresses the observer-again and again.! And the 
higher civilization rose, the more the idea of city and state 
developed, the more did the worship of the national deities 
reenforce and strengthen the dread of violating the great 
ordinances of law, of nature, and of traditional custom. 
Oaths and hospitality, marriage and filial duty, were under 
the protection of religion. Over the great fundamental 
laws of domestic morals watched the avenging Erinyes. 


1 Fustel de Coulanges, Za cité antique; Erwin Rohde, Psyche. 


256 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


And as the cult was a part of civic duty, so, on the other 
hand, the valor and justice of the citizen took the form of 
duty toward the national gods. But still even here what 
the gods demanded was primarily respect for their own 
rights. The more they had in them elements of nature 
religion, the more indifferent were they thought to be 
toward true inner morality.1 The highest pagan religions | 
bore this stamp. Ceremonial injunctions, prescriptions as 
to food, forms of the external conduct of life, everywhere 
occupied the foreground. Not only among the Romans 
was religio essentially legality and the careful fulfilment of 
the legal claims of all the deities, and found its festal 
expression in gladiatorial shows and licentious spectacles ; 
but also among the Persians there existed punctilious care 
in respect to external purity, to sacred formulas, to the 
distinction between clean and unclean creatures; nay, 
even in the popular religion of Israel, whose overesteem 
of feasts, sacrificial rites, and morally indifferent actions 
the prophets denounced century after century. Even in 
an advanced stage of paganism human sacrifice and ritual 
immorality were regarded as religious duties. Since con- 
science was determined by religious motives, it by no 
means always decided in accordance with moral standards. 
And on the other hand, in regard to the moral demands 
of the gods, it was always only a question of the act as 
such and of the relation of the individual to organized 
society. Character and private life were excluded. ‘ihe 
stranger had a claim to be treated according to the prin- 
ciples of morality in vogue in the race only if, as “guest 
and stranger,” he put himself under the protection of the 


1 To lay a knife in the fire, to strike a horse with the bridle, to wash one’s 
clothes, seemed to the Asiatic nomad grave sins. 


Deductions from the Christian Idea 257 


native gods, and even then not perfectly. As long as he 
remained really a stranger he had no right to take part 
in the cult of the national deities, or to expect moral 
justice from the members of the nation. Paganism could 
establish neither a moral duty of “man to man,” nor an 
ideal of humanity. 

In the prophet religions all moral relationships are 
subordinated to the revealed will of God, and this is no 
longer directed merely to outward actions. Morality and 
religion begin to be inwardly united, not merely in the 
sense that the cult is a civic duty, and civic duty has a reli- 
gious basis. All the activities of society take on a religious 
character. But all the more does what is left in these 
religions of merely naturalistic and ritual elements seem a 
mysterious and sacred action enjoined by God himself, to 
be regarded as fully equal in value to the moral duties. 
And there arise new dangers for morality from religion 
itself. Morality takes the form of an unchangeable ordi- 
nance. It loses the capacity for development and the 
character of individuality and freedom. The slavish mind, 
looking to rewards, creeps in, and with it anxious timidity 
or superficial self-righteousness in the judgment of self. 

In the Christian kingdom of God the place of statutory 
divine commands concerning morality and sacred forms 
is taken by a new principle of morality born of religion 
itself, the love that is the determination of God’s own will. 
And this moral principle is the fellowship-forming one 
par excellence, and makes every immoral activity impos- 
sible. ‘‘ Love does no ill to its neighbor.” Thus the place 
of servile and interested obedience to an external com- 
mand of the divinity is taken by the new moral direction 
of the will that is aroused with an inner necessity in 

Ss 


258 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


believers by the revelation of the grace of God. The 
belief that God’s love aims to create a fellowship of 
love must in itself give birth to the spirit of love, if it 
is a real belief, not self-deception or falsehood. Hence 
it must show as its fruits the activity of the truly moral 
mind — genuine good works. The kingdom of God, as a 
fellowship in activities springing from the divine love 
revealed in Christ, includes all true moral action of neces- 
sity. Christ is the end of the law. The letter becomes 
spirit, submission to command conscientiousness. Action 
takes the stamp of individuality and of moral freedom. 
It knows no other unchangeable rule than this: to act 
under the given conditions in every case according to 
_holy love, and to aim at the greatest possible promotion 
of moral fellowship. This becomes the task of the new- 
born personality, and carries religious happiness with it. 
It can become ever new in its manifestations, and yet re- 
mains always the same in its principle. Its essence lies 
in the mind of love. He who should give all his goods 
to the poor and his body to be burned would profit 
nothing without love (1 Cor. 13). It is based on the assur- 
ance of God’s love, and hence is free from false fear and 
hope of reward. But it brings with it the consciousness 
of its value for the eternal world (reward). And its ideal 
stands at every moment so high above reality that humility 
and penitence must take the place of self-satisfaction. 
From the will of God revealed in Jesus and from the 
idea of the kingdom of God can proceed no special 
ordinances having reference to the merely natural life. 
All that pointed to this is shadow and figure. All nature 
is in itself pure, being the work of God. The kingdom 
of God is not eating and drinking. What goes in at the 


Deductions from the Christian Idea 259 


mouth does not defile a man. God is spirit and must 
be worshipped in spirit and in truth. The place of the 
ceremonial law is taken by moral demands that keep the 
spiritual personality always lord of nature and uncon- 
fused by the natural impulses (holy). And since the 
kingdom of God is the whole of God’s will toward man, 
there is no longer any ritual duty that is not intelligible 
from the point of view of the moral idea. The true sacri- 
fice is morality. To place oneself and the instruments of 
one’s personality unreservedly at the service of God is 
the reasonable worship (Rom. 12, 1). Christ and God are 
served in our brothers (Matt. 25, 40-45). The love of 
God has its truth in love of our neighbor (1 John 4, 20). 
The all-sufficing God needs no honors and gifts. Jesus 
is the last victim and the last priest. Thus all moral 
action has a religious basis, and all religious action is 
morally determined. To worship God in spirit and truth 
is to keep alive the vigor of the religious life within us, 
and to give it outward expression. The external cult 
ceases to be the standard and the most important affair 
of religion. It is an incense that accompanies the offer- 
ing of life; just as fast days become days in which the 
religious life is strengthened, and prayers at stated inter- 
vals become the revelation and inspiration of prayer 
“without ceasing.” 

Hence Christianity everywhere sinks back into lower 
forms of religion where external natural forms are set 
alongside morality as commandments of God, where in 
ritual is seen a magical influence in God or an act de- 
manded by God in his own interest, and where the mark 


of living Christianity is found in external participation in. 
the cult. In its observance of the Sabbath the Reformed ° 


\ 


260 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


Church has sunk below the Christian plane, as has Pietism 
in the emphasis it lays on certain social actions. Con- 
sistently Christian in those respects is only Lutheran 
ethics. But the whole evangelical conception stands 
over against the Roman Catholic system of forms as a 
really Christian stage over against a Jewish or pagan one. 
A church in which the Lord’s Prayer has become a ritual 
act (res molesta), which celebrates its worship in a foreign 
tongue, in which the House of Prayer has become the 
house in which God dwells in the consecrated Host, which 
seeks to honor God by the pomp of processions and 
priestly splendor, is not the expression of the thought of 
Jesus, even though it rouses the pagan enthusiasm of the 
multitude better than the worship of God in spirit and 
truth. 

2. Marriage. —In all the more important realms of 
the moral life the Christian idea of the kingdom of God 
has been the first to create perfect principles adapted to 
every sound development. Above all in marriage. As 
long as there is no goal above this world and so no abso- 
lute dignity in moral personality, marriage must always 
have essentially the character of a natural relation. As 
a fact the position of woman and the conception of mar- 
riage and marriage customs have varied greatly among the 
pagan races, with their degree of civilization and national 
character. The physical factor of marriage receives rell- 
gious emphasis. Woman is a means in the hands of the 
stronger man and his property. Woman’s honor is the 
property and right of the clan. Children have no rights 
over against the father. Polygamy, in which the personal 
dignity of woman is lost, is nowhere rejected on principle. 
In this matter Islam has remained wholly on the plane of 


Deductions from the Christian Idea 261 


the pagan conception, mitigated by reasonable treatment ; 
just as in its maintenance of Slavery as a principle it 
shares the pagan misapprehension of the dignity of man. 
On the other hand in its dread of nature Buddhism comes 
near regarding marriage as a lower form of life which the 
truly pious man cannot share. And wherever the natural 
has been regarded as the limitation and not as the ex- 
pression of the divine will, there has been an inclination 
to a similar verdict. .Even Christianity, when it first ap- 
peared, has inclined in this direction and found a higher 
perfection in abstinence over against the strongest natural 
appetite and the one most interwoven with sin. Even in 
Paul this tendency is unmistakable in connection with 
the spiritualism that at that time ruled all thoughtful men ; 
though he bases renunciation of marriage only on the 
special tasks of a religious community summoned to a 
struggle with a hostile world and waiting its speedy glori- 
fication. In the account of Jesus’ childhood in Matthew 
and Luke such a view plainly plays its part. And the 
impression of the life of Jesus himself has certainly 
worked in this direction. But not until its coalescence 
with the idealistic and dualistic currents of nobler Greek 
culture did the Christian church raise the superiority of 
celibacy over marriage to a principle, and give it legal 
expression in monasticism and for the episcopate. It was 
a very bold step of the Reformers to proclaim the divine 
right of matrimony in the face of the usage of a thousand 
years and of apparently condemnatory passages of Scrip- 
ture, even though with no flawless logic. But in the true 
nature of Christianity there lies, rather, an ideal concep- 
tion of marriage. Woman is the equal of man as a per- 
sonality of eternal value to God, subordinate to man only 


262 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


in the realm where the special capacities of the man 
assign him the leading place. Like him, she is a moral 
end and not a means. The physical mystery of sexual 
love is pure and springs from God’s creative will, but 
only where it is put in true marriage (monogamy) at the 
service of a moral good. Otherwise it is rejected, with 
an energy and clearness that the old world never knew, 
as a desecration of personality (sopveta). Marriage is 
thought of as instituted by God and indissoluble where 
it is a marriage of true Christians. And through the 
supernal redeeming love revealed in Jesus, wedded love 
becomes a good of eternal significance and the image 
of that highest love that unites the church with Jesus 
(Eph. 5, 32). ; | 

3. Culture, Art, and Science. — The realms of art, social 
life, and science are in themselves, of course, independent 
of religious conditions. Born of inalienable instincts of 
human nature, they develop wherever a certain stage of 
culture and sufficient development of talent offer them 
the necessary conditions. They may be very undeveloped 
beside high piety, highly developed beside a low state 
of religion. As they had in pagan antiquity a period 
of bloom never again attained in many respects, so also 
they are the splendor of the worldly age of the Renais- 
sance and flower most in the unbelieving circles of our 
society, that fancy they have in them a valid substitute for 
the religion they have lost. Hence they often present 
themselves as dangerous surrogates of piety. And in the 
same way the life of trade with its results, and the higher 
developments of private rights, depend in no way on reli- 
gion. But since without health in these spheres a human 
culture cannot develop and grow noble, only that religion 


Deductions from the Christian Idea. 263 


can be looked on as perfect which in its highest principle 
meets them with influences that do not check, but pro- 
mote and purify. It lies, it is true, in the nature of reli- 
gion that all energetic piety, conscious of possessing the 
one thing needful, must be inclined to face these interests, 
when they make claim to satisfy the soul, with a certain 
hostility, and that every genuine religion in its earliest 
realization is indifferent to them. In art and science the 
spirit of a people, with its dangers and sins, expresses 
itself most strongly and enticingly. A highly developed 
society easily seduces to the lust of the world. We cannot 
serve God and mammon. And where these elements are 
strongly developed in a race and rule the popular soul, 
they easily become dangerous rivals, and try to assert 
themselves as surrogates, of morality and religion. Hence 
Christianity has at first met the flower of Greek culture 
and morals with indifference, nay, with dislike. It has 
seen without pain the spiritual and material wealth of an- 
tique life go to ruin. But this is, in fact, only a proof that 
the new religion of redemption was conscious of offering 
what was better and more indispensable; and that it was 
and aimed to be nothing else than living religion. Even 
where it is only a question of the honor and existence 
of a nation, the achievements of art and culture, and the 
riches they have created, must be counted as naught. 
How much more must they, in comparison with the highest 
good, be counted as worthless things which the pious man 
can without hesitation renounce. Hence no inference can 
be drawn from the historical attitude of early Christianity 
toward the culture of a world that it aimed to replace with 
a new one, in regard to the attitude of the Christian reli- 
gion itself toward these interests. It can only be a question, 


264 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


whether Christianity is able to make room in the pure de- 
velopment of its principle for these interests of humanity. 
Buddhism, that on principle makes men indifferent to 
them, and Islam, that tries to maintain the status of 
knowledge and society of an undeveloped age as a Con- 
stituent part of religion, cannot be the religion of a health- 
fully expanding humanity. 

Christianity cannot offer these interests positive aid in 
the way in which many of the higher stages of pagan- 
‘sm have done. In its eyes the beautiful is not the real 
revelation of the divine, pleasure in life not the life with 
God, wealth not the expression of the favor of God. In 
its eyes poetry and art are not in themselves worship. 
For it the moral, not the esthetic, is the decisive factor 
in judging the value of human life. Hence it has neg- 
lected the art and the joy of possession of its pagan con- 
temporaries, and has seen them perish without regret. 
And every attempt to return to the exaggerated pagan 
estimate of these interests must be vigorously rejected by 
Christianity as often as it recurs. It can see its own 
essence as little in the splendors of the age of the Renais- 
sance as in the modern exaltation of art and artists. The 
naive joy in the pleasures of the natural life and the 
“religious” attitude toward the beautiful are impossible 
for the Christian (lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, pride 
of life). The one thing needful can be neither art nor 
wealth, but the perfect moral fellowship born of the love © 
of God. And the Christian can be “happy,” even when 
the goods of culture and wealth are denied him. Nor 
does Christianity in itself beget science. Its need is the 
faith that can be more perfect in the puxpot than in the 
scholar. 


‘ 


Deductions from the Christian ldea 265 


But Christianity in its real nature knows nothing of a 
monkish contempt for these interests. Nature is for it 
God’s work, given man to be moulded by his spirit. It 
teaches ‘‘all is yours,” “to the pure all things are pure.” 
It bids its disciples long for everything that is lovely and 
of good report. Teaching us to see in nature a holy 
revelation of God, it furnishes the scientific instinct after 
knowledge a religious basis, and elevates it toa duty. It. 
fills the soul with ideals that must produce a unique 
art. It ennobles work into a service of God, and _ hal- 
lows property as a means for the moral tasks of life and 
for works of love among our fellow-men. In Christ the 
divine is conceived as human, that is, as an object of 
artistic representation. Christian instinct must, it is true, 
feel it to be pagan for art to attempt to represent God 
himself in human form. But in Christ it asks to see God 
in his human revelation. And in the “men of God” it 
sees the one divine spirit in the richness and variety of 
personal human life. As an historical religion in the 
highest sense of the phrase, Christianity offers inexhausti- 
ble inducements to all mental activities. The school is 
the daughter of the church. The cult has produced a 
new and unique development of architecture, painting, and 
music. Only for sculpture does Christianity offer hardly 
any positive impulse. For the beauty that this art can 
express, the beauty of external form, based on the life of 
nature, is not the beauty in which the divine life shines 
upon us, according to Christian feeling. Sculpture must 
always choose by preference the gods and heroes of the 
higher nature religions. The “man of sorrows” is no fit 
subject for the sculptor. The “teacher” is no sufficiently 
inspiring one for him. The Christian ideal, that aims to 


266 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


present the beauty of the soul, is much better adapted for 
the art of the painter. The development of the soul by 
inner experience of the divine and by its historical revela- 
tion has created a loftier, deeper, and riper poetry than the 
old world knew. Not only Dante, Calderon, Klopstock, 
Milton, Tersteegen, Paul Gerhard, but also Shakespeare, 
Goethe, and Schiller, cannot be conceived apart from the 
presupposition of Christianity. The incomparably greater 
wealth of thought and of spiritual life that we meet in 
Hamlet or Faust, even when compared with the noblest 
figures of classic poetry, shows what Christianity has con- 
tributed to the national soul. Only the popular epic, born 
of the naiveté of an age forever fled, a child of the pagan- 
ism whose deities passed into heroic legend, can never 
again be created in its old charm by a reflective age. 

And where love is the ruling principle, a social inter- 
course must grow up that reflects the real joy in fellow- 
ship and the true nature of noble recreation, instead of 
the mere appearance of mutual helpfulness. This love 
alone is able, by a better organization of the life of toil 
and by personal sacrifice, to overcome social ills, to free 
toil as well as wealth of its pagan stamp. However little 
Christianity aimed at a change of the social conditions © 
of the great pagan world (it hoped in a few years to 
see a new and perfect Christian world), it is nevertheless 
certain that the necessary development of its ideas has 
transformed the laboring classes from slaves and mere 
tools into men with moral and civil rights, having their share 
of the fruits of culture. And all that is sound in the 
social efforts of our time is really “applied Christianity.” ? 


1 Social democracy itself rests, it is true, exclusively on the pagan principles 
of the absolute value of sensual pleasure and the rights of the natural instincts. 


Deductions from the Christian Idea 267 


The achievements in this field and the forces of mercy 
and love that Christianity has disclosed are the most 
convincing defence of Christianity; and in them the 
Christianity of the present will have to give the proof of 
its imperishable significance. For foreign missions, too, 
but above all for the victory of Christianity in the lands 
of the Christian church itself, the might of redeeming love 
is the decisive power. 

But only that Christianity is the perfect religion that in 
all spheres keeps itself free both from pagan devotion to 
the things of this world and from puritanical contempt 
for the beautiful and delightful and cold aversion to 
profitable and pleasant fellowship. In the conception of 
Sunday a good standard can be found for the health of 
Christianity. Where it is a day of worship, of kindliness, 
and of pleasure in all that is good and fair, it represents 
the Christian idea, in contrast with Jewish narrowness and 
with pagan incapacity to rise above the monotony of toil 
and of amusement. And as long as the church in any way 
takes a suspicious attitude toward the full and frank devel- 
opment of science, as if it were a danger to religion, there 
still clings to her something of the lower religious stage 
which looks on the kingdom of God as an external phe- 
nomenon, one bound to certain definite results of culture 
and knowledge, and hence at bottom a worldly one. 

4. Church and State.1— From its start religion has not 
been an affair of the individual, least of all of his inner 
life, but a concern of the family, the clan, the city. The 
head of the social body was also the representative of the 
cult. The gods wanted no worship from strangers. 
Paganism was absolutely tolerant, leaving to each people 


1 Schultz, Staat und Kirche in der Religionsgeschichte, an address, 1895. 


268 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


its special cult undisturbed, and regarding it as pledged 
to that cult. But it demanded observance of the cult from 
all the members of the clan and from those entering it. 
In this respect paganism was absolutely intolerant. Its 
principle was, cujus regio, ejus religio. In marriage the 
transference of the wife from her own domestic deities to 
those of the husband was necessarily included. Hence, 
as soon as a real civic life began, state and church were 
one, that is, all state functions were religious and all eccle- 
siastical ones civic. The life of the state was holy. Its 
wars were fought fvo aris et focis. And although the 
state’s interference in religious interests, and the exploit- 
ing of religious for political ends had a disastrous effect, 
nevertheless there lay in the union of patriotism and piety 
a great power. Even in Persia and in Israel this relation 
existed originally. ‘Thy people shall be my people, and 
thy God my God”’ (Ruth). But the logical development 
of the prophet religions involves the impulse to realize a 
religious. community outside of tribe and state, that is, to 
produce a church alongside of the state (universalism). In 
Islam, to be sure, where the Prophet was at the same time 
chieftain, and where his successors claim to be heads at 
once of the church and the state, the state is at bottom 
only the church equipped with executive powers, either as 
a union of all believers or as an organization of a part 
of them. Law springs from the religious revelation (Ko- 
ran). Religious customs are civic duties. War is a reli- 
gious act. And the state has the tendency to become a 
universal kingdom of Islam. <A national state and a 
church developed purely religiously are in this case alike 
impossible. | 

In Buddhism and in Christianity, on the other hand, 


Deductions from the Christian Idea 269 


church and state are separate, and it is the church only 
that has sprung from religion. The power of the state was 
originally indifferent to both religions, nay, often bitterly 
hostile to them. It was as societies of believers indifferent 
as to what their civil or national affiliations might be that 
the confessors of these two religions first gained their 
consciousness of fellowship. In Christianity there is 
neither Greek nor barbarian, Jew nor Gentile. Even 
for the Buddhist, believers cease to belong to a caste. 
And the church had no influence on the form of the state. 
This situation, in comparison with the corruption of later 
ages, has often seemed ideal. And it shows at least that 
genuine Christianity has no need to shrink from the com- 
plete severance of church and state. But the ideal of 
the Middle Ages, the consistent return of the church 
to its original poverty and to its indifference to the 
organized life of the nation, is by no means the Chris- 
tian one. Where love of country and civic virtue are on 
principle without religious foundations; where the church 
must create for itself a corporate life to which religion 
in itself offers no impulse; where the national life as 
such is not in general open to religious influences and 
possibly completely closed to them; and where the life 
of the state must seem to the devout man at bottom undi- 
vine, a kingdom of this world over against the kingdom of 
God, —this can only be the result of unfavorable circum- 
stances. Buddhism shows its incapacity to become a 
religion of humanity by the fact that, even where circum- 
stances are favorable, it has shown no interest in the state 
and its affairs, has organized itself as a community of 
ascetics, and has left the state no réle but that of patron 
and almsgiver to the church. 


270 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


Christianity of itself gives birth to no prescriptions on 
state, constitution, and law. It can be united to any moral 
form of state and can thrive in any honest party. But it 
sees in state and law, as in the family and society, divine 
ordinances that it needs for its healthful development. It 
therefore fills love of country and sense of law with its 
own peculiar religious life. And in the principle of love 
it furnishes an inextinguishable impulse to so help mould 
the life of the civil community that its moral ends can 
be attained more and more perfectly. Christianity is the 
principle of legality and of progress at once. It can 
suffer neither indifference to the state nor its degrada- 
tion to ends foreign to its God-given purpose. The true 
Christian must be a good citizen in a higher sense than 
others. From the Christian religion flows unceasingly the 
effort to abolish all institutions in the state that harm the 
moral dignity of personality or make certain social classes 
incapable of true moral fellowship, and to level all unjust 
inequalities arising from the undue power of wealth or 
rank. Christian love is the principle of social reform. 
But the community of religious life that Christianity begets, 
the church, is by its nature totally independent of legal and 
national conditions. It must always be ready to provide 
from its own resources, in case of need, the means of 
maintaining its existence, and to protect itself by religious 
forces. Its inexhaustible treasury is the self-sacrificing 
contributions of the faithful. Its last weapon is martyr- 
dom. Where either should fail the church would be dead. 
And it must let its religious and moral life be limited by 
no laws that have not sprung from its own nature. But 
inasmuch as Christianity honors the state as an ordinance 
of God, it can obediently subordinate the civil and legal 


Christ pay a 


side of the church’s existence to it, and in common with 
every organization that promotes the ends of human cul- 
ture, claim its protection and kindness; although it knows 
that it must also be able to dispense with these. On the 
other hand, it must decline the interference of the state 
with its own forms of life. Pure doctrine, cult, missions, 
etc., it must not try to establish by the aid of the 
state. Hence the normal situation, according to Chris- 
tian ideas, is a close union of church and state, of profit 
to each and without mingling or conflict. The church 
is not the kingdom of God, nor the state a merely worldly 
institution. And even if the state of itself withdraws from 
union with the church, still Christianity does not stop con- 
tributing to it forces of moral strength and growth from 
the impulse of its inner nature. It is true that genuine 
Christianity must cast off the errors that cling to it his- 
torically from earlier religious stages. A state church and 
a territorial system are pagan. The theocratic develop- 
ment of the church and its wish to exploit the resources 
of the state for its own ends answer to the ideals of Islam, 
not of Christianity. The distaste for any participation of 
the religious man in the affairs of the state is Buddhistic. 
And the dislike for order and organization in the church 
contradicts the principle of love that demands community 
of life even in religion and does not suffer its members 
at their pleasure to limit their efforts to their own salvation 
or to the religious life of narrow circles. 


SECTION 2: CHRISTIANITY THE PERFECT REVELATION 


275 Christ 


1. That in Christianity we have the perfect revela- 
tion of God to man, the apologetics of the eighteenth 


272 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


century sought to show chiefly by pointing to the special 
historical form of the revelation which has given birth to 
\ the religion of the Bible. It claimed that miracles and 
prophecy were intended to rouse confidence in the super- 
natural character of the history here laid before us, and in 
the divine character of its transmission (inspiration). The 
very nature of religion and of revelation implies, as we 
have seen, the unjustifiableness of the assumption that the 
true revelation can be recognized by such external peculi- 
arities of origin and manner of communication as can be 
proved even to unbelievers, and thus distinguished from 
merely alleged revelations. And we must frankly confess 
that, in view of present historical methods, this method 
of defending Christianity can have no prospect of success. 
Miracles are accepted only where belief is already present, 
and hence cannot of themselves beget it. The unique 
character of the Biblical books (inspiration) is evident only 
to him who has already accepted the revelation of the 
divine that we find in them. And the probability that an 
event of the past has been given a miraculous coloring 
by uncritical piety will always seem greater than the other 
alternative, viz. that in a few cases the laws governing 
the sequence of things and approved by daily experience 
have shown themselves invalid. What is to arouse belief 
in us must not be something merely past. It must be able 
to show itself at any time alive and present. Hence the 
defence of the perfection of Christian revelation must not 
base itself primarily on the argument that certain historical 
events in ancient times have by their supernatural char- 
acter shown themselves to be revelations of God; but on 
the fact that the self-communication of God in the person 
of Christ, that is always open to our examination, approves 


Christ 273 


itself to us by its very nature as the full revelation of the 
divine, not as a theoretic ideal, but as an inspiring reality. 
Christ himself is the apology of Christianity, not the vari- 


ous historical incidents of his earthly life. And the new © 


life proceeding from him to man is the apology of Christ, 
not individual acts that he has done or the individual 
prophecies that he has uttered. 

2. In paganism the revelations of the divinity do not 
concern themselves at all with religion or morality, and 
have neither history nor sequence. They take the form 
of scattered announcements from the world of spirits, and 
are attached to certain localities and aim at definite worldly 
or ritual ends (spiritism, hypnotism). Prodigies, magic 
formulas, and visions are the forms the revelation takes. 
It is by no means thought of as limited to historical events 
of an earlier time, but is always expected to occur afresh in 
the same fashion in which it took place of old. And it 
really offers something typical. Revelation is not anti- 
quated. ‘The world of spirits is not closed.” But these 
revelations have chiefly to do with the cult, and are con- 
nected with certain shrines or with remarkable natural 
phenomena whose interpretation belongs to the priests. 
There is neither historical progress nor personal convic- 
tion. In its original form even prophecy kept wholly 
within the limits of this sort of revelation. Whether the 
prophet take his stand on his professional skill or on 
ecstatic inspiration, his duty is to receive and interpret cer- 
tain announcements of the deity that have significance for 
the sphere of secular interests. 

But as soon as religion reaches the prophet stage an 
inward change comes over the figures of the prophets. 
They now experience in their souls announcements of the 

T 


274 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


will of deity to the community, that determine its life and 
fortunes and aim to establish in it a standard of piety and 
morality. In Israel we meet this new sort of prophecy, 
and can trace its development from the primitive type, 
with special distinctness. A religion that rests on such 
revelations of God through prophets is thereby permanently 
linked to its historical origin. The individual revelations 
from which it arises constitute a history. And if the com- 
munity is no longer conscious of a living revelation in its 
midst, it still feels itself religiously and morally determined 
by the past revelation and its record, and looks on its reli- 
gion as finished, even if the possibility of a further revela- 
tion is not theoretically excluded. The two unite without 
contradiction. After the formation of the canon the Jew- 
ish scribes regarded religion as a fact and, as far as their 
own religious life was concerned, as finished. And yet they 
have never denied the theoretic possibility of its further 
development and completion, as presupposed by prophecy. 
In Islam, on the other hand, the revelation contained 
in the Koran is held to be absolutely final. And even 
Christianity, in the presence of the assertions of the per- 
fectibility of its religious essence, cannot admit the possi- 
bility of a really higher revelation, as long as it holds to 
the doctrine that Jesus is the Son of God. In such 
prophet religions do we first find firm religious convic- 
tions of a final character, objective religious fellowship, 
and unified moral and religious conceptions. This gives 
them the capacity to awake in their members an immov- 
able personal conviction. But it carries with it also, to- 
gether with the new danger of intolerance, other not 
inconsiderable disadvantages. Later generations must 
accept the revelation on authority as an historical one, 


Christ 275 


without any personal experience of it. Hence arises the 
danger of blind faith in the letter on the one hand, and of 
the undermining of religion by historical criticism on the 
other. And because such religions are naturally in many 
respects of a piece with the culture of the age of revelation 
and with the personality of its recipients, they have a 
tendency to oppose all further spiritual development. 
They grow old. Moreover, every prophet who is no more 
than a prophet must know himself to be personally dis- 
tinct from the revelation that he receives, as from some- 
thing foreign to him. Hence he cannot communicate the 
religion that proceeds from him in the shape of a principle 
living in him, but only as law and doctrine, and creates 
thereby ordinances and dogma. 

3. The revelation in Christianity is prophetic in the true 
sense. But it is more than prophetic. It unites the 
advantages of prophet and nature religions, and escapes 
the defects of both, by something unique and new. It is 
historical in the truest sense. A personality in which we 
find the full revelation of God for human life, and which 
lays absolute claim to the confidence of every man, claims 
to be an authority for all time as God’s Son, King of the 
kingdom of God, the Lord, the incarnate revelation 
(Logos). And the record of the effects of this personality 
is enshrined in a literature that has sprung living from them 
and claims to be regarded as the fixed norm for all times and 
for all developments of this religion. But the revelation is 
in this case not merely historical. The historical personal- 
ity presents itself, in Scripture and in the effects by which 3 
it has stamped itself on the hearts of men, to every age and 
every soul as present and living. And a new principle of 
life becomes effective (Holy Spirit), in which every mem: 


276 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


ber of the community can have an inward and personal 
share. Hence the true Christian experiences the revela- 
tion personally. God in the person of Jesus enters into 
intercourse with his soul. And he is conscious of the pres- 
ence in sacred literature of the same Spirit that he can 
experience, as a divine life of revelation, in himself. The 
old promise of the covenant of the Spirit and of the pour- 
ing out of the Spirit on all members of the community is 
here fulfilled (Joel 3, Jer. 31). The Christian is at once 
scribe and prophet. What he receives historically can 
become in him a personal experience, an immediate con- 
viction, an enthusiasm that suffuses all life. And hence 
historical doubt can, to be sure, attack the external history 
of Jesus, but not the revelation of God in him, and can 
criticise the literary and historical dress of sacred Scripture, 
but not its religious and moral truth. Jesus testifies of 
himself to the conscience as the second Adam, in whom 
the effort to attain true humanity finds satisfaction, and 
from whom proceeds a new type of humanity that man- 
kind has never been able to evoke of itself. And Holy 
Scripture bears witness to itself by the Spirit working and 
ruling in it as a whole (¢estimonium Sp. S. internum), 
whose witness is in no way shaken by the inconsistencies 
of the separate books, nor by their various literary and 
scientific defects. Christianity has not been revealed.as a 
“book.” And because in Christianity the revelation of 
God is completely identical with the personal life and the 
religious self-consciousness of its herald, it no longer 
presents itself to the community as ordinance and doctrine, 
but as the disclosure of an inner unified religious life and 
as the self-communication of perfect piety. As the spirit 
of this personal life, it promotes the development of per- 


Christ 277) 


sonality, and can, in every age and at every stage of cul- 
ture, take new forms and yet remain the same. It is a 
question of the living revelation of God in a still active 
personality, not of the authority of a past age and of a 
man who is only an historical figure. Jesus stays with his 
own and in them. He sends his Spirit of truth as their 
“comforter.” ‘Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, 
and forever.” And only personal life has the power to 
beget personal life. 

4. That this conviction of the Christian community in 
regard to the character of the revelation which it has in 
Christ, is not a pious self-deception, making of a simple 
historical prophet the self-revelation of God, but that it 
answers to the reality in Jesus, apologetics can, it is true, 
not prove, like a scientific truth, to those resolved to Op- 
pose it or to the religiously insusceptible. For this the 
historical sources are too meagre, and, as witnesses to the 
faith in Jesus, too little inexpugnable in the presence of 
a criticism that applies the probe of historical investiga- 
tion without faith. And how could one ever prove scien- 
tifically the unique quality of personality? But what is 
based for believers on an inward religious experience 
can be made clear to all who are accessible to moral and 
religious impressions and who are fair critics. Even if 
a sufficiently certain picture of Jesus and his life can no 
longer be had, the principle of “sufficient cause” would 
speak for the claim of Christian conviction. And we must 
not regard it as accidental, that in Holy Scripture itself 
the verdict on the character of the personality of Jesus 
as a revelation is submitted to the judgment of con- 
science and of moral experience (John 7, Ly) saat 
Jesus has created the moral and religious ideal by which 


278 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


Christianity lives and toward which it aims, that he has 
identified his life with and given it for this ideal, can be 
doubted by no reasonable man; nor that for him this ideal 
has been no foreign one, that had dawned on him per- 
haps in the highest hours of his religious life or in ecstatic 
exaltation, but one identical with his personal conscious- 
ness of his calling. In the circle of his earliest disciples 
there is nowhere any conceivable starting-point for this 
new life. Least of all in Paul, who has himself been con- 
quered by it and has then incorporated it in the formulas 
of theological thought. The existence of a community 
of men filled by a new religious spirit that they can have 
| received from no one but Jesus, is a fact that makes 
every explanation impossible but this: that Jesus is the 
personal revelation of a new life that daily approves 
itself to the conscience as the true human realization of 
the divine, as the true liberation of personality from the 
world, and as the true bliss amid sin, guilt, and death. 
In Jesus’ own personal life, and nowhere else, has the 
sonship in God dawned, and with it the assurance of the 
eternal and supernal significance of human personality. 
In Jesus’ religious experience God is revealed as love, 
light, and life, and the goal of man as the fellowship of 
love, truth, and happiness. All this would be unintelligi- 
ble if Jesus had not really been what he was convinced . 
that he was, and what his church sees in him. 

s. But even an historical proof of the dignity of Jesus 
as the perfect revelation of God is entirely possible for us, 
provided it is not meant that we are to prove, for instance, 
the dogmatic statement of the belief in him (divinity 
of Christ) scientifically, or show him to be the greatest 
philosopher and theologian, or guarantee the historical 


Christ 279 


trustworthiness of all the Biblical narratives about him. 
On the miracles reported of Jesus apologetics will cer- | 
tainly never be able to base such a proof. For how- 
ever certain it is that the original impression made by 
his life would not be intelligible without the marvels he 
wrought, and however indisputable the piety and truth- 
fulness of the narrators in the Gospels may be, neverthe- 
less the possibility cannot be denied that the enthusiasm 
of pious and uncritical circles has placed these acts in a 
more marvellous light. And even if these narratives be 
accepted, they could not place Jesus qualitatively above 
Moses, Elisha, and Elijah. They would therefore only 
prove his quality as prophet, a thing which even Oppo- 
nents do not deny. 

6. For the disciples of the Lord, doubtless the appear- 
ances of the Risen One have been the final decisive proof 
of his being the King of the kingdom of God and the 
perfect revelation of God; and the fact of these appear- 
ances can be doubtful to no reasonable man, however 
inconsistent the reports of the several incidents may be. 
The disciples have gone out into the world as witnesses 
to the resurrection, and have died for their testimony, as 
they have lived for it. Hence the fact is absolutely cer- 
tain that they have seen the Crucified, even if the way in 
which it took place must, in its detail, always remain his- 
torically a subject of dispute. But they have seen him 
as believers. He who does not share this faith of theirs 
will attach to the fact, which even he cannot doubt, all 
sorts of questions that are not lightly to be put aside. 
It cannot be ignored that the attempt has been made to 
explain the appearances of the Risen One, as far as they 
are historically established, from the so often mysterious 


280 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


realm of visions. It is true that this explanation must 
ignore many important points of the narratives as unin- 
telligible. It is compelled to make conjectures as to the 
mental attitude of the first disciples of Jesus that are 
little probable. As the conditions necessary for such 
visions on the part of the disciples, we should have to 
assume, along with the excitement and shock that we 
certainly can assume in them, also a very great vigor of 
hope and energy of belief grounded on definite expecta- 
tions, —things that we have no right to assume of the 
deeply stricken men. Still, such an assumption would not 
be absolutely impossible. And in Paul we find many of 
the predisposing conditions, which, in the case of a man 
subjectively disposed to visions, would enable us to under- 
stand why the victory of Jesus, whom he hated and who 
nevertheless did not leave his soul at peace, manifested 
itself to his soul in visible form. But Paul puts his 
seeing of Christ on exactly the same plane with the experi- 
ences of the first apostles (1 Cor. 15); hence, from the 
point of view of scientific conviction, little more could be 
proved than that the personality of Jesus was not checked 
by the death on the cross in its effect on his followers, but 
attained a new spiritual field of activity. But this would 
by no means decide the question here under discussion. 
To faith the question is a very different one. It is, to be 
sure, not certain in what bodily form the Risen One 
revealed himself; whether his grave was found empty, 
whether the “three days” of rest in the grave are an 
inference from Scripture or are historical, whether the 
appearances of the Risen One took place only in Galilee, 
etc. For these are historical questions, with which faith 
has nothing to do, and which do not affect its content. 


Christ 281 


But it is convinced that by the power of God the Crucified 
has been revealed to his followers as the victor and Living 
One, in order to strengthen their faith,—a strengthening 
that was indispensable, — however it may have come to 
pass in detail. And it is convinced that this Jesus to-day 
reveals himself to his disciples, though in another way, as 
victor and as the goal of history. But these are convic- 
tions of faith on which apologetics must not base itself. 

7. It is far more a question of the total picture of this \ 
personality, whose living impression meets us unmistakably 
in the precipitate it has left in the traditions of the com- 
munity. Jesus has proclaimed the will of God, not as 
theologian or philosopher or scribe, but as prophet, with 
no other proof than his own personal assurance, even 
where he had to put himself in opposition to ruling views 
and current piety (ws é£ovclayv éywv). He has revealed the 
final will of God toward man, as the one who alone knew 
God and alone was acknowledged by God. He has 
accordingly simply made the fact of his own religious 
life the basis of his church. And so he works even 
now on all who open their hearts to the personality of 
Jesus disclosed in Holy Scripture. He stands before men 
as the Son of God, and calls the prophets only servants. 
He is full of loyalty and fidelity to God’s earlier revela- 
tions. Every jot and tittle of the law is sacred to him. 
But he sets his “I say unto you” over against the 
teachings of the fathers, and sees in the ordinances of 
the Old Covenant something provisional, the true will 
of God being only imperfectly realized in them. The 
code of Sinai receives in his interpretation a meaning that 
goes vastly beyond its letter. From the prohibition of 
perjury springs the religious condemnation of “ swearing.” 


282 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


Murder and adultery are recognized in the mere hate and 
lust of the heart. The Sabbath becomes a means for 
attaining the ends of man; divorce, a remedy for human 
sin. Sacrifice must be subordinated to love of neighbor. 
He awakes in the just penitence, and in the sinner trust 
in the gracious will of God. His preaching of the king- 
dom of God is, at the same time, a preaching of himself. 
For him his disciples are to give up everything, as for 
the good itself. He, therefore, who recognizes that the 
Christian kingdom of God is in fact the perfect good, 
must also be convinced that,in Jesus, God’s whole will 
toward man has been personally revealed. 

8. The certainty of the justness of this impression — 
a certainty completely independent of all historical ques- 
tions — can be gained by every one who, with honest faith 
in the ideal that lives in his conscience, puts before himself 
the picture of this new human life set forth in Holy Scrip- 
ture as proceeding from Jesus. The reality of the good, 
its rights, and its power to rule the world of experience 
meet us, in the picture of the personality thus revealed, 
with an immediate power that puts to shame every doubt. 
There is no alternative but an obstinate aversion of the 
will from it, or a penitent submission to it. So Jesus 
testifies of himself to every one as the judge and the lord. 
In him, to-day as of old, God addresses our hearts, to 
testify to them his love and to disclose to them his true 
will. In this personality that knows itself one with the 
good, and that, out of love for men as creatures destined 
and called in spite of their sins to the kingdom of God, 
freely gives all worldly goods and at last its own worldly 
life, is revealed the sin-conquering and guilt-forgiving love 
of God with unmistakable power. It witnesses to itself 


Christ 283 


in the heart, and does it so unmistakably that we can be 
inwardly certain of possessing God in Jesus perfectly and 
blissfully, as the one who lifts above the world and annuls 
every worldly woe. Thus he bears witness to himself as 
the Saviour, as the one who reveals the true nature of God 
and beyond whom there can be for man no higher revela- 
tion of God. This certainty holds, it is true, only for those 
who bow themselves honestly and unreservedly before the 
ideal of the good aroused in them (“‘ who will do his will’’), 
and who open their hearts in trust to the highest realiza- 
tion of the divine mind, here become a fact. But no one 
whom Jesus has touched can withdraw from him without 
overlooking or suppressing the most certain and most 
valuable elements in his own life. 

9. To try to compose a picture of the moral and religious 
uniqueness of Jesus from certain prominent virtues in his 
life would betray a complete lack of comprehension of the 
essence of a moral personality. And ‘the attempt to arrive 
at the “ perfect sinlessness” of Jesus by the path of a 
purely historical investigation, must show from the start a 
misapprehension of the limits of scientific knowledge and 
of the peculiar nature of the records we have. It is cer- 
tain that the narrators of the life of Jesus mean to tell 
nothing of him that is not in perfect accord with their ideal 
of morality. Their own conviction of his moral perfection 
is of course firm, even if it were not expressly stated 
(2 Cor. 5,21; Heb. 4,15). And even if we should find 
in their narratives elements that according to our moral 
standards might seem to make Jesus’ sinlessness doubt- 
ful, we should always have to assume that they are not 
so understood by the narrators, and can suppose that the 
dubious element in them is due to the narrators’ undevel- 


284 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


oped moral judgment./ But the objections to the moral 
perfection of Jesus that are drawn from the Gospels fail 
to see: (1) That the individual actions of a personality 
must be judged in connection with its calling and its 
given conditions of life. No contemporary of Jesus 
would have doubted that a prophet had the right to use 
natural objects for the purpose of the revelation of God’s 
will, without regard to scruples that might be deduced 
from rights of property or questions of utility. This sets 
aside the criticism of the story of the dried-up fig-tree, 
or of the swine of the Gadarenes, as a misapprehension. 
Even Jesus’ enemies have not disputed the right of a prophet 
to perform these actions or to cleanse the temple, but have 
only demanded that he establish his claim to be a prophet. 
The repulse of a pagan woman from participation in the 
grace of God so wonderfully manifested in Israel was 
Jesus’ duty as a prophet sent to Israel. He could depart 
from this only in exceptional cases, where the higher claim 
of the faith of the petitioner had approved itself. The 
special way in which Jesus led his life, his renunciation of 
the joys of home and family, his aloofness from the life of 
labor, were the necessary sacrifices imposed upon him by his 
unique calling of Saviour, that took precedence of all other 
tasks. And the narrative in Luke 2 means by no means 
to report of Jesus a lack of filial obedience or a blame- 
worthy caprice. His parents had left Jesus in the sacred 
city, and he only expressed his surprise that they had 
looked for him there and not remembered that he could be 
found in no other spot than the temple of God. Or else 
(2) such objections try to measure the idealistic picture of 
the incarnate Logos in the Fourth Gospel — one removed 
far above man and his world —by the standards of ordi- 


Christ 285 


nary human morality. For against the defenders of the 
historical use of this Gospel, it must be most distinctly 
asserted, that the way in which Jesus appears in it (how- 
ever marvellously beautiful, pure, and sublime as an 
expression of the belief of the community in its Lord, the 
incarnate God) would, nevertheless, if it were a question of 
the actions and words of an earthly and historical person- 
ality, not coincide with the pure conception of moral per- 
fection. An earthly man, even though conscious of “his 
divinity,” would have spoken differently to his mother 
than is reported in John 2, 4. A prophet who had come 
to save his people would not, after a few preliminaries, and 
on the ground of miracles such as were told also of the 
ancient men of God, have dared to require of the multi- 
tude belief in his divinity, nor to account their very com- 
prehensible astonishment and hesitation to them as mortal 
sin (John 5, 19 ff.; 6, 41 ff.; 8, 42 ff.). A man, however 
superior he may have been, would have had to give a more 
honest answer to the questions of his brothers than that in 
John 7, 8. All these statements are sacred and true if 
they are taken as traits of the picture of that Master whom 
the Spirit had transfigured in the eyes of his followers 
(John 16, 14), and whom their faith led them to glorify in 
respect to his divine significance and his elevation above 
the limitations of the world. For an historical estimate of 
his personality they are inapplicable. 

But it is here a question of a personality, only a small 
part of whose life has become the subject of narrative at 
all. And these narratives have proceeded from enthusias- 
tic faith, not from historical interest, and have undergone 
no criticism. Under such circumstances it is simply im- 
possible to conduct a cogent historical argument for Jesus’ 


Pome 


286 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


| sinlessness in the strictest sense./ It is psychologically 


wholly false to maintain that transient moral obscurations 
and weaknesses at the period of childish growth must 
necessarily have left permanent scars on the conscience 
and have hindered a prophet, after he had attained perfect 
peace with God and gained the consciousness of being 
engaged in a great prophetic task, from speaking to his 
contemporaries as physician of souls and herald of the 
grace of God, without reference to his own sins. It will 
be difficult to persuade a conscientious man who does 
not as yet believe in Jesus, that it must have been im- 
possible for Jesus to say the Lord’s Prayer with his dis- 
ciples without expressly omitting the ages, with which, 
however, Matt. 19, 17 seems so well to agree. The abso- 
lute sinlessness of Jesus is no result of historical study, and 
hence, too, no dogma of apologetics. If it is understood 
that “sin” is something more than the conscious trans- 
gression of definite injunctions of God, it will also be seen 
that the question of “sinlessness”’ leads into those depths 
of the inner life which no historical observation penetrates. 
The sinlessness of Jesus is a dogmatic doctrine, an infer- 
ence that thought makes from faith’s experience of the 
influence of Jesus. It is true that even dogmatics will 
have to surrender the utterly inapt negative word “ sinless- 
ness,” because, if too low a view of sin be taken, it says 
much too little, and does not really characterize the pecul- 
iar character of the personality of Jesus at all; while, if a 
really deep view of the ultimate nature of human sin be 
taken, it is apt to beget a Docetic view of the historical 
Jesus. The word must be replaced by the positive phrase 
“religious and moral perfection,” in which the creative 
genius of Jesus really finds expression. 


— sll 


Christ 287 


10. But still it is possible to prove what is of most 
importance for apologetics. Beyond all doubt, Jesus 
has spoken and acted from the conviction of being in 
his own person the full and blessed revelation of the 
will of God toward man, and of being parted by no 
worldly interests of his individual will from the loving will 
of God. And inasmuch as he scorned to appear as an 
ideal of righteousness, as understood by the school domi- 
nant among his people, —nay, down to his death on the 
cross, opposed this ideal, —the suspicion of any intentional 
doctrinal presentment of his person is, in the presence of 
his personality, not to be maintained for a moment. In 
the same way the possibility is excluded that there could 
have been a contradiction between his own consciousness 
of himself and the impression that his disciples received of 
him. For though a man is not necessarily bound in his 
intercourse with others to give expression to his own full 
self-consciousness, a prophet who demanded that his 
disciples stake their life and death on his personality, 
and who with biting severity reproached the leaders of 
his people with déméxpyovs, would have been guilty of a 
morally annihilating lack of truth, if he had not given, as 
far as was possible, perfect and exhaustive expression to 
his inner life in relation to God and God’s kingdom. If 
penitence and atonement had been the presuppositions of 
his own religious life, he would have had to cry to sinners: 
“Seek grace and pardon in God’s paternal love, as I have 
done.” Instead of speaking of temptations overcome 
(Matt. 4), he would have had to tell of the hours in 
which he had overcome all sense of the separation from 
God and all fear of the judgment, and so had become the 
beloved Son of God. But not the least suggestion of such 


288 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


experiences is to be found in his preaching of the gospel. 
He is, it is true, a man who struggles with temptation, — 
not good like God whom no temptation touches. But 
he is free from all trace of repentance and need of recon- 
ciliation. He does not yearn to be one with the divine 
purpose, but has it in him as the aim of his own life. He 
is not sick, but the physician of the sick; not in need of 
redemption, but the Saviour and helper. He is the only- 
beloved Son of God; in the eyes of his disciples in full 
personal union with the idea of the good and with the 
kingdom that he promises. And of a misconception, even 
though an unconscious one, of the relation of his own per- 
sonality to God and to itself, no unprejudiced man can 
think in the case of Jesus. This self-consciousness he has 
held fast even in the deepest abysses of human suffering. 
By its unity, assurance, and joy his personality carries 
home the conviction again and again of its oneness with 


what man is to be, and of its complete fellowship with - 


God. His religious humility and his childlike mind, along 


with a royal loftiness toward all that is prized on earth; his. 


indifference to egoistic and sensuous satisfactions in full and 
unreserved surrender to God’s own purpose; the holy deli- 
cacy and healthfulness of his comprehension of nature and 
man; the tireless might of his redeeming love; his royal 
inward happiness amid external poverty; the charm of his 
harmonious and yet powerful and strongly marked charac- 
ter, —all bear witness to him. Jesus’ life is the life of 
God himself among men, without any admixture of egoistic 
aims. The motive power of his life is the divine love itself 
that seeks the salvation of its brethren, a love free from all 
worldly conditions and bounds. That is the beauty of the 
“fairest among the sons of men,” a beauty that has over 


a. 


Christ 289 


and over again proved more powerful than all the dubiety 
and criticism of the sages of the world. In the prayer for 
his enemies on the lips of the dying Christ, in the ceaseless 
service and help in which every selfish worldly motive 
vanished, this beauty of the Only-begotten finds its most 
conspicuous expression. 

11. All this we find in full clearness and splendor in 
Jesus’ death on the cross. He has given his life a sacri- 
fice for his brethren, as the price of the good, amid shame 
and agony. Not, like the martyrs after him, in the 
strength of an already victorious cause, but supported 
only by himself and his faith. That is the highest deed 
of love, and the convincing revelation of its world-conquer- 
ing power. In it is preached to us by deed, not word, 
the gospel “God is love.” And that this death has not 
checked his personality in its activity, but has led to 
higher spiritual efficiency, is the proof that here a higher 
principle, one not of this world, has entered the world. . 
Christ’s cross and his resurrection are the real apologetics 
of Christianity, and hence of religion in general. Who- ; 
ever does not deliberately withdraw himself from the 
impression they make must see in Jesus the true revela- 
tion of God, judging our sins and making us happy by 
faith, And he must receive in his soul the certainty of 
the victory of this revelation over the opposition of the 
world, over its pain and its death, as the power of eternal 
life. This impression, however, stands above all justifi- 
able doubt, as one born of a true history and yet living 
and working in the present: Even without assuming a 
special inspiration for Holy Scripture, we can expect of 
every truth-loving man that he see in Scripture the person- 
ality of Jesus as it showed itself in its effects among the 

U 


290 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


earliest disciples, and hence look on it as an authentic wit- 
ness for the revelation of God made in him to man. 


28. Deductions from the Fact of Christian Revelation | 


1. Only in Christianity is God fully revealed, and 
that in a personal human life, that is, without any 
dark remnant of the natural and without any arbitrary 
or incomprehensible element. Only here, therefore, has 
religion attained full actuality. God draws near us in a 
personality that reveals the kingdom of the good as its 
sole aim in life, that addresses itself to all men, summoning 
them to this kingdom, and that aims to open to them the 
same happy fellowship with God that it enjoys. And God 
draws near to us in a life that reveals God’s grace to the 
repentant sinner, and exhibits triumphantly the omnipo- 
tence of redeeming love amid the depths of the most terri- 
ble suffering. Hence perfect childlike trust in God is here 
possible. God is the almighty love that guides personality 
to its true goal, even through sin, and makes all worldly 
things means to this end. God reveals himself as spirit. 
In surrender to him is therefore perfect deliverance from 
the world. The dread and the magic rites of paganism 
cease here, as does the servile effort to satisfy the un- 
intelligible demands and to appease the uncomprehended 
anger of God, which reigns in Talmudic Judaism and in 
Islam becomes apathetic resignation to Kismet. God 
reveals himself as the idea of the good. But this revela- 
tion does not aim at condemnation nor at making men 
unhappy. God means to lift every one who yields his 
soul to him and trusts him, beyond servitude to the world 
and his sins, above the world, and to unite him to himself. 
Thus the goal is reached at which all religion aims. The 


Deductions from Revelation 291 


revelation of God is at once the power that rouses penitence 
and urges to constant moral renewal, and the power that 
makes the believer happy and lifts him above the world. 
The Lord’s Prayer is the proof of the religious perfection 
of Christianity. And God is really appropriated by the 
soul, We face the God concealed in the processes of 
nature as something absolutely foreign to us. He crushes 
us and is utterly outside of our own spiritual life, un- 
comprehended, incomprehensible (sacred awe, spiritual 
estrangement). Spiritually we can surrender ourselves 
only to that which makes explicable the innermost secret 
and the final goal of our own personality (absolute de- 
pendence, and freedom from the world). Only what is 
revealed to us in human form can we men make our 
personal possession. Only the God who meets us in his 
human revealer and in the life that he wakes in men, 
is really manifest to us both in the reality and the mys- 
tery of his being. This is the religious and redeeming 
power of the belief in the triune God, however much it 
is obscured by the unfamiliar form. That the God who 
reveals himself in Jesus and rules the world for his own 
ends is the sole God, needs here no proof. And only 
when God is manifest as a personal power of good does 
the belief in his unity gain religious significance (Xenoph- 
anes, Anaxagoras, Aristotle). Only in the Christian coh- 
ception of God is the goal attained at which in all religions 
the healthy instincts of piety aim. 

2. In the true conception of God is involved the true 
comprehension of the world.!. The world becomes the sum 
total of the conditions of life amid which God’s love has 
placed personality, meaningless and dangerous only if it 


1 Schultz, Optimismus und Pessimismus, address, 1884, 


292 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


be looked on, not as material for the moral personality 
to work with, but as the goal. In Christianity the lord- 
ship of the world that personality demands is no longer 
sought in the shape of a supposed temporal conquest of 
the world by a magic that fancies it makes God’s miracu- 
lous control of the world subservient to itself. It is given 
immediately in the certainty that we are the object of 
God’s almighty love. The relative justification of pessi- 
mism (the misery of every effort for satisfaction in the 
world, and the worthlessness of the world where it is 
made the goal of personality) attains here just as logical 
recognition as in Buddhism, nay, a more logical one. For 
in the consciousness of sin aroused by the person of Jesus 
human personality appears incapable of itself to free itself 
from the misery of the world. Learning, art, and civiliza- 
tion appear only futile attempts to veil the nullity of the 
world. But at the same time Christianity brings the true 
optimism. Since the world is of God, that is, is means for 
his ends and material for moral good, it is absolutely and 
without exception good. There is nothing in nature in 
itself unclean or evil. Only opposition to God’s will is 
evil. Even the ills and sorrows of the world are good as 
material for moral virtues. The verdict on the world as 
foundation for the kingdom of God must be an entirely 
optimistic one. For the highest goal is positive, not nega- 
tive. In Jesus God reveals himself as active and pur- 
posive, as the highest good aiming to realize itself in the 
world. And “all things must work together for good to 
them that love God.” Optimism is a religious duty, and 
its noblest expression is the hope that the world is to 
become wholly the instrument of God’s will, that is, 
transfigured. Pessimism is the verdict on the world as 


Deductions from Revelation 293 


still incomplete, and on the misery and folly of refusal to 
aim at the highest goal. Alongside of genuine Chris- 
tianity there can exist neither the joy in the world of 
ancient and modern paganism, nor the timid withdrawal 
from the world that fears in the natural as such an ele- 
ment of evil and would find true piety in renunciation 
of the attempt to spiritualize the natural. In the place 
of the naive happiness of youthful and vigorous races 
that has faded with their youth and been transformed into 
pessimism, Christian faith puts an eternal youth (Is. 40, 
30f.) and a bliss that lasts even amid the trials and sor- 
rows of life (Rom. 5, 3; Jas. 1, 12), because even these are 
understood to be God-given aids toward the eternal goal 
of personality. From the optimism of frivolity, that on 
the edge of the abyss exults in the pleasure of the senses 
and thinks itself happy in enjoying a world without a God, 
and from the pessimism that looks on the world as the 
devil’s and has often had an attraction even for strong 
Christian personalities, the religious mood of pure evan- 
gelical Christianity is equally remote. 

3. In the true revelation of God the true nature of sin 
is also disclosed. Sin is not something natural, compa- 
rable to the withering of the spring blossom, or the death 
of the light, or the destruction of the productive power of 
nature by the heat, as paganism conceived it; nor is it like 
the contrast of night and day, of shadow and light. The 
world is God’s, Sin is also no necessary accompaniment of 
human growth. Christ has died on the cross because sin 
ought not to be, and his cross is to wake repentance. The 
consciousness of sin is not got rid of by regret for one’s 
own weakness or by idle longing for perfection. It includes 
the judgment passed by the man on himself and the convic- 


294 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


tion that that should not be, which yet by his own will 
really is. Nor is sin opposition to an arbitrary divine will, 
nor does it consist in the violation of certain prescriptions 
for which divine punishment can be feared, apart from 
inward self-condemnation, and for which remission can be 
found in the same arbitrary will (Islam). Sin is the oppo- 
sition of the will of personality to the true purpose of God 
with it that is revealed in Christ, and the surrender to the 
natural instincts that ought to be material for the divine 
love, that is, to the sensuality and selfishness of the natural 
man (cap&). It is found wherever the new life in Christ 
does not exist, wherever, and so far as, men are children 
of the first Adam, even if the order of life be externally 
satisfied. And yet itis always an act of the individual will, 
and is not in the physical sense a misfortune that men have 
to “bear.” The judgment of self in regard to the whole 
natural trend of one’s own personality that the cross of 
Christ awakes, is the true religious recognition of sin and 
wholly independent of theological or philosophical expla- 
nations. And this judgment of self means the immediate 
consciousness of a guilt that cannot be bought off by ser- 
vices to the divinity, but demands reconciliation. 

4. In the Christian revelation reconciliation and redemp- 
tion are immediately involved as an act of God, and are 
an absolute and happy certainty for every one who lets him- 
self be touched by it. The loving will of God aims to 
make the world of sinners into a kingdom of God and to 
draw them to him, in spite of sin, as God’s children. It 
reveals itself in Christ’s life, and above all in his death, as 
an almighty world-conquering reality. Hence the sins of 
all who let themselves be received through repentance into 
the kingdom of God no longer separate them from God 


Deductions from Revelation 295 


(reconciliation), and no longer thwart the aim of their per- 
sonality by making them slaves to the world (redemption). 
Thus there is an end to the childish attempts to appease 
the wrath of a hidden God by sacrifices, observances, and 
renunciations of a worldly kind, or to get rid by natural 
means of what is based in the will (pzacula, devotiones, 
satisfactiones). The place of these is taken by the penitent 
surrender of the will of the natural man to the revealed 
will of God. The rationalistic superficiality of a belief 
in a God who is indulgent toward the natural man becomes 
impossible (Islam). The cross of the Son of God is the 
condition of reconciliation. Just as impossible does the 
conception of reconciliation as flight from the world or as 
surrender of one’s own personality become. On the basis 
of what Israel’s prophets have laid down, it is plain 
that God can have no fellowship with those who persist 
in personal opposition to his will; and at the same time 
the conviction is roused that all whose personal life is 
united to God and who seek forgiveness of their sins in the 
revealed fatherly love of God have part in his redeeming 
grace. Hence there are no longer any acts of atonement 
and no self-torment, but only trusting surrender to God’s 
grace; no work of man aiming to reconcile God, but a 
world-reconciling act of God himself. All works of man 
in which religion once sought reconciliation have become 
mere shadows by the death of Jesus. This is the guar- 
antee of the love of God that conquers the world and sin, 
and also of the inviolable fellowship of the community 
with God that is born of Jesus (covenant sacrifice), and is 
therefore the great act of reconciliation. The act that 
has brought to light a new humanity and passed judg- 
ment on the sins of the world is also an act of reconciling 


296 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


grace. Of it is born hatred of one’s own wrong nature, 
and at the same time the blessed consciousness of the love 
of God that conquers the heart. And both rest, not on 
works of man, but on God’s revelation. And the blessed- 
ness of reconciliation is not purchased, as in Buddhism, 
by renunciation of the aims of our own personality, but 
that personality is born anew and given new power in the 
assurance of the divine purpose (Holy Spirit). In the 
consciousness of the fellowship with God and his will that 
is assured by God’s grace, lie the forces of a free, happy, 
and childlike morality, in which all mere legality, with its 
self-righteousness and self-condemnation, is at an end. 
It is true that this holds only of that Christianity in which 
reconciliation with God is received of God’s free grace 
through faith in Christ; not of the lower forms of Chris- 
tianity that teach the attainment of eternal life by good 
works and renunciation and the oft-repeated reconciliation 
of an angry God by the sacrifice of the mass; or which 
degrade the atoning work of Christ, in the fashion of 
paganism and Judaism, by measuring the personal and 
moral act of the revealer of God by the standards of the 
material and legal, calling it a supererogatory merit that 
earns for us the forgiveness of sins. Even the doctrine 
of atonement of the Old Testament prophets stands high 
above such “ Christian’’ misapprehension. 

5. The assurance possessed by the disciples of Jesus 
that God’s purpose for them reached beyond this world, 
lends the hope of a perfected personality that shall sur- 
vive bodily death an immediate religious certainty that 
we seek in vain in the systems of the philosophers. It is 
true that this hope has been cherished by religion in the 
most various forms, from the worship of the dead and of 


Deductions from Revelation 297 


ancestors down to the eschatological ideas of the Egyp- 
tians, Scandinavians, and Persians. And philosophy has 
tried ever anew to find a basis for it. The element of 
truth in the arguments for the immortality of the soul is 
limited, at bottom, to the assurance of idealism that in the 
rational personality something supersensual lives that 
cannot yield to the attacks of the order of nature 
(Matt. 10, 28); from which, however, a real imperishability 
would by no means follow. But this mere “continued 
existence” of a “soul,” that is of course impossible to 
picture, is in itself no object of hope. The ancient 
world has believed it, without feeling much more than 
horror of it. Nirvana is, in fact, more desirable than an 
endless existence without real content and without activity. 
Hence the fancy has liked to adorn the picture of the life 
after death with ever new colors of heightened earthly 
happiness; which after all would be intolerable if con- 
ceived as endless and contradicts the character of exist- 
ence outside earthly life. By a false deduction from the 
longing for an imperishable life, or from the idea of 
eternity (which could, however, be conceived of as in 
time) as immanent in the soul, a guarantee has been 
sought for its existence beyond this earthly life, without 
ever considering how often both are absent. An argu- 
ment for the endless duration of man has been deduced 
from the fact that a few great men have felt within them 
vigor and content of life enough for a limitless continu- 
ance of their personal life; but in fact most men have 
lived themselves out in the course of their earthly life and 
become weary of it. From the demand for moral recom- 
pense an eternity of human personality has been inferred; 
as if the sufferings and sins of the average man de- 


298 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


manded endless happiness or endless torment for their 
compensation, and as if there were no bar of judgment 
in ourselves. Only when the eternal world had shone as 
a reality upon this world and an eternal and blessed 
goal for man had been revealed in fellowship with God, 
could such shadowy pictures yield to the assurance of 
faith. Only with the resurrection of the Crucified, and 
with the belief that his cross and his resurrection are valid 
for all mankind, has immortality become a happy certainty 
and a’consoling conviction. The “Spirit” is the pledge 
of resurrection. And the purity of the Christian hope is 
not dimmed by the fact that pious fancy has adorned it 
with the colors of earthly happiness. It does not occupy 
in Christianity the position it does in Islam, in whose 
eschatology sensuality and selfish carnal enjoyment ap- 
pear as the real content of hope, while moral perfection, 
fellowship with God, and unity of human aims are wholly 
lacking. The bliss which the Christian conceives of is 
no accidental worldly happiness. Its centre is the vision 
of God (full religious satisfaction) and the loving fellow- 
ship of men (moral perfection). The ideal of hope is the 
kingdom of Jesus Christ, who is the judge of the hostile 
world, not an egoistic life of pleasure. The Spirit of 
truth and love is the pledge of hope. All other “ happi- 
ness’’ appears only a necessary result of communion with 
God. And since this is so, it is a matter of complete 
indifference to religion if the imagination lend this hap- 
piness natural forms. Equally distant from a material- 
istic entanglement of personal life with the course of 
nature and from the surrender of a well-equipped and 
effective personality for the blest, the hope of Christianity 
makes at once for moral purification and for happiness. 


Religious Problems 299 


It emphasizes the eternal worth of the individual person- 
ality, and yet knows of a perfect life only in spiritual 
fellowship. It leads away from the empty picture of 
an “immortality of soul” that would exclude all activity 
and all fellowship, to the belief in a bodily form for the 
blest, in their reigning and acting (Luke 19, 17 ff.). But 
it holds it folly to think in this of the old bodily form of 
earth (1 Cor. 15, 36 ff.), or to count on a repetition of the 
conditions of the flesh (Matt. 22, 30), although fancy has 
in this sphere always combined physical and spiritual 
conceptions. It does not claim to be a deduction from 
scientific considerations. It is a purely religious assur- 
ance. But it has nothing about it that could contradict 
such scientific knowledge, and it satisfies the persistent 
claim of human self-consciousness, as something personal 
and spiritual, to a significance above nature. — Even it 
must, of course, sink below the level of Christianity as 
soon as the world of pictures that is the garment of reli- 
gious hope is made its real content, and the spiritual clarity 
of piety dimmed by sensual or mystical excitements 
(chiliasm). 


29. Christianity as the Solution of the Religious Problems 
of Civilization 


1. Christianity, by its conception of the highest good, 
excludes the danger of mutilating or giving a one-sided 
development to the moral interests of mankind, as, for 
instance, by subjecting the state to the church, or de- 
manding that the culture and knowledge of a certain age 
be looked on as universally valid and final; and it has in 
the manner of its revelation the capacity of influencing 
all the problems of human culture, as far as religion is 


300 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


concerned in them, in the direction of an unlimited and 
healthful development. 

2. With religion the “ priest’ entered the world. At first, 
it is true, paganism knew no priestly caste distinct from 
the chiefs of the family and the tribe. But on the ground 
of the assumption that certain formulas and acts can influ- 
ence the divinity and certain rules interpret its will as 
revealed in the phenomena of nature, there grew up of 
necessity a special calling in which the offices of priest and 
prophet were blended. Bound to the conditions of nature, 
often hereditary, the earliest priesthood had no moral dig- 
nity and was more an object of dread than of real rever- 
ence. Magic and ceremonies are the expressions of its 
life. With genuine civilization and knowledge this type of 
priesthood is by its nature incompatible. It is even inimi- 
cal to religion, for it prevents men taking a personal and 
spiritual share in the religious process. But it maintains 
itself tenaciously even in the culture religions of highly 
civilized races. Is the priest who by his sacred formula 
transforms the earthly elements into the present God or by 
mysterious sacramental rites works a change in the inner 
life of a personality without any act of its will, at bottom 
anything else than the perfected form of the magician 
of the ancient religions ?— In principle the hostility of this 
office toward culture was not changed when among the 
civilized races of antiquity the priests became a highly 
cultured caste set apart to care for religious interests. 
The priests of this new sort were, it is true, themselves the 
chief representatives of the national culture and developed 
it into a sort of religious science. They claimed high rever- 
ence by virtue of their connection with religion. And the 
more these religions ceased to be simple and popular, the 


Religious Problems 301 


more the sacred words and writings became unintelligible, 
the sacred acts archaic, the myths mysterious, the more 
did the priests as the sole representatives of religion be- 
come surrounded by a halo of sanctity and the community 
feel itself profane in comparison with them. They ab- 
sorbed the religious life of the people and became their 
spiritual masters, or there sprang up a class of religious 
experts among them or of interpreters of the will of God 
alongside of them. Among the Hindoos, as among the 
Egyptians, the priests were the privileged teachers of the 
people and its spiritual masters. In the Levitical priest- 
hood and in the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church the 
same situation is found. But among more ambitious races 
in the long run a reaction against the priesthood has never 
failed to appear. The mendicant orders are the rivals of 
the Brahmins, and in Buddhism they have won the vic- 
tory. The scribes have in Israel robbed the Sadducean 
aristocracy of priests of their control of souls. In early 
Christianity the lay preachers of the gospel opposed trium- 
phantly the priesthood of Israel. And in the Reforma- 
tion the preacher has supplanted the priest in religious 
power.—Such a priestly caste can by its very nature 
suffer worldly culture and untrammelled knowledge only 
so far as it is able to deduce both from its own assumptions. 
By preference it keeps to a language that is no longer 
alive on the lips of the people (Vedas, Accadian, Syrian, 
Coptic, Latin) and to formulas that are unintelligible to the 
community. And in his deepest significance the priest is, 
in this form too, still the magician who influences the gods 
and nature, and holds in his hands the national fortunes 
(theurgy). For all his real wisdom and indisputable ser- 
vices to popular welfare, he is incompatible with true culture. 


302 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


All prophet religions are by nature anti-hierarchic. The 
prophet is, it is true, in his oldest form closely akin to the 
priest. Both interpret God’s will. The priest has only 
the advantage that the possession of a recognized shrine 
carries with it. But the prophet, as founder of religion 
and channel of revelation, is something very different from 
the priest of the legally established cult. He feels himself 
authorized by the new religious life that stirs within him 
to give a new form to the intercourse with God and cannot 
cede to the representatives of the established order the 
right to gauge his piety by the sacred forms of the past. 
So prophet religions seem to the representatives of 
priestly rights and traditions as by nature revolutionary 
and hostile to “piety.” And they have no impulse to 
beget a priesthood themselves. They arise mostly in 
direct opposition to the accepted religious traditions ; and 
their revelation, addressed to the intelligence of the mul- 
titude, creates a holy community conscious of a living 
fellowship with God and his will, and necessarily lays 
more weight on the whole conduct of life than on 
unchangeable forms of ritual. Without exception they 
give the impression of laying the chief emphasis on lay 
piety over against the clergy. Christianity has in this 
point attained complete finality. It reveals the whole will 
of God in a personal human life, one valid for every 
individual personality, and the norm for all its relations 
to other men. It has no place for an independent external 
cult alongside of the moral task, but demands a spiritual 
worship that no one can perform for another. It knows 
nothing of unintelligible magic words and acts, and puts 
every member of the community in direct relation to God 
as his child. Its mysteries are acts of the community. 


Religious Problems 303 


Its means of grace are the free and public possession of 
all believers. Its cult is devotion and edification, peni- 
tence and gratitude, reverence for God and surrender to 
him. With no mysterious ceremonies it bases itself on the 
Word and demands the inner sympathy of all its members. 
Emphasis is no longer laid on the exact performance of 
certain ritual acts. And the revealed truth is contained 
in a record that has been born of history and is historically 
intelligible to every one. Hence Christianity has no place 
for the pagan conception of the priest, to which corre- 
sponds the pagan conception of a “ profane” world. All 
real Christians are priests, and can approach God and 
offer him their spiritual sacrifice themselves (“a royal 
priesthood,” “one is your master”). Of laity, in the 
false sense by which the members of the community 
were once distinguished from the clergy, we can speak in 
Christianity only where we wish to distinguish those who 
are Christian only in name, the membra admixta ecclesia, 
from the real Christians. And the place of a priestly 
class set apart by a mysterious consecration for sacred 
acts and to approach God, is taken by the office that dis- 
penses the means of grace as forces necessary to the life 
of the community; an office that is indispensable and 
necessary to the health of the church, as to every organi- 
zation that is to maintain its existence through a series of 
generations. But, like every Office, it is conferred by the 
community in due form on fit men. It is not conferred on 
a special class by a miraculous consecration or by divine 
laws. Its bearers have the duty of taking upon themselves 
as their profession and responsibility the common tasks of 
the church, like the bearers of any such office in human 
societies. — It is true that a new hierarchy of a Jewish or 


304 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


pagan kind has asserted itself in Christianity. And we 
can understand this, inasmuch as the Christian church 
must have felt the need in the presence of the danger of dis- 
memberment to consolidate itself historically for its great 
struggle in the world, and inasmuch as it found around it in 
the world, as something that was a matter of course, the 
presupposition of priestly magic. Moreover, we can grant 
to the hierarchy the merit of having preserved the culture 
of the ancient Christian world through ages of barbarity. 
But it is rightly abolished as far as the spirit of this reli- 
gion is concerned. Since Luther placed the preachers of 
God’s word over against the priests, hierarchy and priestly 
magic must be looked on as elements inwardly foreign 
to Christianity, elements that have sprung from atavistic 
impulse and by which the perfection of the Christian 
religion is obscured. 

3. Just as little as the hierarchy of Roman Catholicism, 
does another phenomenon, that in Buddhism results from 
an inner necessity, belong to the true nature of Chris- 
tianity. A real member of the “church” of Buddha 
can in the nature of things only be one who has, while 
still on earth, extinguished the will to live and freed his 
life from everything by which the “world” could draw 
his personality into its circle. Only the “monk” who 
renounces marriage, property, calling, rank, and kin is a 
“ Buddhist” in the full sense. All others are only “asso- 
ciates” that are not yet able to aim at perfection for 
themselves, but aid the perfect by alms and reverence. 
When Christianity entered the world, the same impulses 
could not be unknown to it. For as soon as the new 
religion began to receive large groups of variously devel- 
oped men, the ideal of the new life set it by revelation 


Religious Problems 305 


seemed to stand so high above reality that, though men 
had the courage to make the Christian consciousness of 
reconciliation accessible by ecclesiastical means to this 
whole circle, they still dared not cherish the confidence 
of being able to regard all its members as true and fully 
qualified partakers of this ideal. And the hostility to 
nature of the idealism of those times, the necessary re- 
action from pagan intoxication with nature, led to aloof- 
ness from wide realms of natural life being regarded as 
a condition of regular standing as a Christian. So arose 
the thought of a special Christian perfection that, at least 
as a rule, seemed to be bound up with complete freedom 
from the tasks of civil life, from marriage, property, pro- 
fession, and personal self-determination, and that caused 
the mass of Christians to be regarded as only in a limited 
sense partakers of the life of Christ. Such a conception, 
which degrades the highest and most important moral 
tasks of man to affairs fit only for imperfect Christians, 
and holds only concernment with divine things as moral 
in the highest sense, is, of course, incompatible with 
healthy culture. It is at bottom a remnant of the old 
arrogant overestimate of “ philosophizing’”’ among the 
Greek sages, though religious occupation with God takes 
the place of “thought” (vita contemplativa, religiosa). 
But it is plain that it is not really founded on the Chris- 
tian revelation. Christianity demands the perfection of all 
Christians, and hence cannot think of this as consisting in 
a special calling. Christianity is revealed as a striving for 
a lofty and unseen goal, that is attainable by all. And it 
demands the willingness to let all life be guided by this 
effort and, if necessary, to surrender all earthly things for 
it. In this sense evangelical Christianity sees perfection 


x 


306 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


wherever the earthly calling is pursued with trust in God, 
patience, and prayer, that is, with living faith. And in the 
western world even Catholicism, however firmly it holds to 
the false conception of perfection from which it deduces its 
false valuation of monastic life, has nevertheless in fact 
developed this institution almost everywhere in such a 
way that instruction, benevolence, and civilizing effort 
have become the real moral content of the consecrated 
life directed only to God. True Christianity lifts man 
spiritually above all transitory interests. But it lends all 
true moral interests an imperishable content. All nature 
is pure. The world is for the Christian God’s world. The 
great laws of the natural and moral life of man are “of 
God.” And “love” carries with it the inner compulsion 
to be everywhere, in external as well as in spiritual things, 
active in helping, improving, and doing. Hence Christi- 
anity is a salt that preserves culture from the rottenness of 
servitude to the world. But it furnishes also the highest 
motives for vigorous action in the world. 

4. The most immediate contact of religion with life is 
in the cult. This has at first been the whole of religion, 
and the artificial surrogates for religion still feel themselves 
forced to create a cult — that is, to be sure, lifeless. Even 
where the cult has no real meaning, as in Buddhism and 
among the Chinese, it is nevertheless retained from inner 
necessity. And even the rationalism of the Positivists 
and the Simonists as well as of the Independents, has not 
suppressed the need of a cult. The original cult aimed 
partly at mysterious union with the divinity in a common 
blood or by magic rite, partly at gaining its favor by bribery, 
flattery, and self-abasement. Rite and sacrifice are its two 
fundamental forms. The community fancies that it attains 


Religious Problems 307 


communion with the divinity in exciting physical acts, and 
enjoys it in ecstatic states of the soul. And it aims, by 
the devotion to the divinity of natural goods that may 
flatter its love of pleasure and honor, —that is, by sacri- 
fices and asceticism, which is only a special form of 
sacrifice, —to win the favor of the gods, and to make 
them serve its own ends. In this the moral value and 
the character of the acts are entirely indifferent, as is the 
inner religious and moral participation of the worshipper. 
Eager participation in these acts depends only on the 
advantage expected from them and the degree in which 
they rouse fear and desire. Originally the cult was con- 
nected with sacred dwelling-places and symbols of the 
gods, where their presence could be expected. The tem- 
ple is a house in which the divinity is conceived as pres- 
ent, physically or in symbol. Each several cult is open 
only to the members of a particular tribe, and is prac- 
tised in an established external form. Such a conception 
survives even in the highest religions. Roman Catholic 
Christianity has its ample share of sacramental magic, 
that is effective as opus operatum without spiritual participa- 
tion, in its sacrifice of the mass, in its pilgrimages and 
scourgings, in the splendor of its feasts and the magnifi- 
cence of its churches and votive offerings, in its linking 
the thought of the presence of God with images, in 
prayers that are only a pious routine act, and in many 
other traits. But as early as the prophetic religion of the 
Old Covenant the cult was rejected on principle as the fruit 
of a false conception of God, and of a selfish and profane 
frame of mind. The prophets protest against the splendor 
of the feasts, the number of victims, and the external signs 
of humility. They declare that all this can give God 


308 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


nothing nor please him, but only offend him, since he is 
being treated as a shortsighted being with physical needs. 
They insist on the worship of moral conduct, on penitence 
of the heart, and sincere faith. He who thinks to “buy” 
God for profane ends and with impure mind, tries to 
deceive the Omniscient. And by the revelation of God 
in Jesus this confusion is fundamentally done away. God 
is revealed in Jesus as the love that wills the welfare of 
men. Thereby all cult is excluded that seeks to gain the 
favor of God by human acts. God is humanly revealed 
in Christ. Hence communion with God can no longer be 
sought in rites, but only in the reception of his historical 
revelation; that is, in the word and the sacrament. God 
aims only at the kingdom of the good, to which end his 
omnipotence has made the world. Hence he can be served 
only by doing of the good, and time and place are as ines- 
sential to his worship as are things of nature and worldly 
forms. Sacrifice is replaced by the surrender of the per- 
sonality to God’s will, and the solemn ritual expression of 
this self-consecration by the community. Physical acts of 
service to God are replaced by the self-surrender of the 
rational personality. Thereby sacrifice is at once perfected 
and abolished. Worship becomes the reverent acceptance 
of the historical revelation. Instead of an ecstatic com- 
munion with God in mysterious and unintelligible acts, 
communion with him is sought where he presents his 
historically revealed fellowship of love in word and sym- 
bol, intelligible to every one and yet above all comprehen- 
sion. Instead of plunging into the dark life of nature, the 
Christian submerges himself in the sacred story. Thus 
the mystery in the sacrament is at once perfected and abol- 
ished. Prayer ceases to be a magical formula and be- 


Religious Problems 309 


comes the religious language of gratitude, of humility, 
and of trust. The holy place becomes the house of the 
community (house of prayer) in which God is present, not 
in bodily form, but in his revelation (word, sacrament), and 
yet is confined to no one spot. — With this transformation 
of the cult it loses, it is true, the power to hurry the multi- 
tude away in wild ecstasy, and to fill it with enthusiasm 
for mad deeds. The pagan trait in the human heart 
has again and again, even in Christianity, bred the tempta- 
tion to overcome the supposed dulness of Christian worship 
by sensuous stirring of the soul. From the enthusiasts of 
the Middle Ages to the “ mechanism of conversion” of the 
Methodists this effort can be traced. And it shows itself 
in the secret envy of many Protestants of the splendor and 
the popular appeal that the Roman Church possesses in 
its pagan element, and in the vain effort to rival the popu- 
larity of Catholic festivals and masses by liturgical pallia- 
tives. But the real secret of this popularity, the fanatical 
superstition that hopes by physical means to make God 
serve man’s selfish wishes, can be replaced by no artificial 
substitutes. The evangelical church must frankly confess 
that “ecclesiasticism” no longer forms the centre of its 
religion. But the worship of God in spirit and in truth 
offers the community the indispensable forces of sanctifi- 
cation and enlightenment, nourishes the strength of the 
religious life by the food alone adapted to it, furnishes a 
foundation for the pure and full development of every art, 
and adjusts itself to every higher development of national 
civilization. It knows no unchangeable sacred forms ex- 
cept the maintenance of the word and sacrament as means 
for the self-appropriation of revelation. Thus the genuine 
Christian church can never grow old with the forms of a 
cult born of time. 


310 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


5. In the lowest phases of religion there is neither 
science nor faith! Nature and history are looked at 
only from the point of view of religious poetry, unless 
immediate practical advantage is involved. We have 
myth instead of science, sacred legend instead of histori- 
cal investigation. And faith, in its turn, appeals to natu- 
ral phenomena and historical events, that is, to objects 
of scientific knowledge. Out of superstitious elements of 
knowledge and pseudo-scientific statements of faith arise 
the obscure beginnings of theology. To the people this 
“doctrine” is wholly a matter of indifference. They 
demand only the proper performance of the cult. There 
is no common creed and no religious instruction. To try 
to convert men of other faiths by teaching seems an 
absurd idea. To think of salvation as dependent on theo- 
logical views enters no one’s mind. Among the holders 
of such views the complete tolerance of indifference 
reigns. With growing culture there is developed in the 
circles of the priests the beginning of a real knowledge of 
nature and history (astronomy, medicine) and of a philo- 
sophical system (cosmogony). Religion becomes the 
mother of knowledge. But the false mingling of faith 
and knowledge is not put away. The learning of the 
priests is looked on as a sacred religious knowledge and is 
mixed with elements of vague faith. And thus necessa- 
rily with the beginning of a real knowledge the struggle 
with “theological” knowledge must arise. But by this, 
at this stage of religion, religion itself is undermined. 
Theology becomes the enemy of science as the augur who 
laughs at its own predictions, or else the master of 


1Schultz, Die Theologie in threm Verhiltnisse 2u Wissenschaft und 
frimimigkeit, 1890. 


Religious Problems 311 


ceremonies of a divinity who no longer rules men’s 
minds. 

All prophet religions, inasmuch as the revelation of the 
divine in a human heart is their centre, offer cognition 
really religious material and thereby the foundation for 
a real science of belief (theology). They demand the 
instruction of the community and a confession of faith. 
Hence they are by their very nature intolerant. Moreover, 
they cannot help begetting a religious literature that in its 
turn must become the subject of scientific investigation of 
later times. Here is given, in principle, the material for a 
theology that not only is nowhere at odds with genuine 
science, but is a valuable part of the whole of knowledge. 
But only if it knows how to distinguish clearly, in the 
material that it finds in history, the religious content, 
which is its real material, from the matter bound up with 
it that belongs to the sciences of nature and history. 
Hence in the nature of the subject-matter there lie, it is 
plain, occasions for the conflict of theology and science. 

Every founder of a religion must receive the revelation 
that he experiences under the conditions of his special 
intellectual development, and communicate it in the forms 
of culture belonging to his race and his time; that is, 
under the conditions of the popular notions on science 
and philosophy current in his race. And the more highly 
trained he himself is, and the riper the civilization of his 
race, the more will he make use of such elements. A 
scholar proper can therefore hardly become the prophet 
of a new religion, inasmuch as he is personally too closely 
bound up with the existing system. And because the 
community receives the divine through his personality, not 
only will the prophet’s revelation of God appear of reli- 


312 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


gious significance, but also all that is historically connected 
with his personality. The transmission of the revelation 
having finally become literature, the reverence of believers 
will be kindled, not merely by its actual content as reve- 
lation (word of God), but also by its form as literature. 
Hence arises the danger that theology may treat various 
elements pertaining to the sphere of knowledge in the 
same way in which it treats the revelation on which reli- 
gion rests, making them objects of faith. 

But in that case it must come, in a manner still more 
fatal than the theology of the pagan priests, into necessary 
conflict with true science. For the latter cannot concede 
that any part of history or any question concerning natural 
things can be withdrawn from its laws on the ground of 
belonging to the sphere of faith. Science then seems to 
theology sceptical, and theology is regarded by science as 
unveracious. Where religion, as in Islam, has bound itself 
to its sacred book in the sense that all the scientific state- 
ments in it are to be treated as objects of faith, theology 
must make all true science impossible and be itself opposed 
and enfeebled by it. It can only suffer beside itself such 
science as, like logic or mathematics, is of a purely formal 
kind, or that contents itself with simply objective observa- 
tion of detail. Dammed up by an Index or by penal legis- 
lation, in races of intellectual vigor the scientific impulse 
will then, openly or in secret, seek its satisfaction at the 
expense of religion. But this conflict lies only in misap- 
prehension of the revelation, not in the revelation itself. 

Jesus has revealed no scientific truths, and the sacred 
Scriptures of Christians have arisen from human writings 
that have claimed only to offer the record of revelation 
and to be inspired by the new spirit of Christianity. Unless 


Religious Problems — ans 


then they be conceived of in a way foreign to them, they 
do not shrink from scientific treatment in what belongs to 
science. Christian theology can, in its scientific aspects, 
be included as a part of historical knowledge and treated 
by its laws. It can investigate the real content of the 
history of revelation, the true character and content of the 
sacred books, and the history of the church and its doctrine, 
in accordance with the rules of philology and historical 
study, without fearing to endanger the attitude of religious 
faith toward Christian revelation thereby. And the reve- 
lation of God ina human personality and its world-renewing 
deed offers theological science a purely religious material 
in whose ever improved scientific formulation it has an un- 
limited task and one that can nowhere come in conflict 
with the claims of other sciences. As systematic theology 
it has to develop this revelation experienced by faith ac- 
cording to the laws of thought into a scientific whole, and 
express it consistently in all its details in scientific form. 
As practical theology it has to find methods to make this 
content of faith as efficient as possible for the community 
according to the rules of pedagogics, rhetoric, and ethics. 

But even Christianity has in fact suffered from a false 
conception of theology, and has only begun with the evan- 
gelical church, and then with much uncertainty, to gain 
a right comprehension of theology, religion, and science. 
When revelation has produced a community, at first the 
religious and ethical factors rule the whole intellectual life. 
All culture and all science serve it. Theology can set up 
its claims at its own pleasure and demand the service of 
the other sciences. It thus naturally lays claim to the 
whole realm of knowledge connected with religion as its 
own, as an object of belief. And every great renewal of 


Bin Christianity the Perfect Religion 


the religious life at first has the same tendency. Even the 
Reformation has been at first anything but rationalistic. 
Humanism, which at first was friendly, has soon, in its 
‘chief representatives, turned away from it in displeasure 
because the excess of theological interest seemed to it 
inimical to culture. When recent Roman Catholic polemics 
denies that the Reformation has been an ally of science 
(Janssen), it is quite right. Only its blame is praise. For 
it witnesses to the purely religious character of the move- 
ment.— But things cannot remain permanently as they 
were in the first vigor of a new religious development. 
The scientific impulse and the scientific conscience neces- 
sarily begin to stir among the people. At first science 
respects the sphere laid claim to by theology, and theology 
tries with honest conviction to find a place for science in 
the religious view of things. This is the stage of Scholas- 
ticism that has the courage to include knowledge and 
faith in one grand system of knowledge. It is grand and 
imposing where it is the natural expression of the stage 
reached by religious and scientific culture. So it stands 
before us in the Middle Ages, and has been able to pro- 
duce a sublime poetic picture of the world (Dante). But 
when it is artificially revived, in an age that has long lost 
that naive assurance, in order to veil a contradiction that 
every honest man sees, then scholastic theology is a con- 
temptible piece of insincerity (poor apologetics, compro- 
mise). The stage of scholasticism cannot be permanent. 
Soon the wrongfully claimed elements react as scepticism 
and, when the church is feeble, as destructive criticism. 
The theory of a “double truth” (nominalism) veils but 
poorly the contradiction that soon becomes mockery of 
theology. Now, of course, the religious interest, as the 


Religious Problems 215 


more universal and powerful, may be able to maintain 
for a time the claims of a false theology over against 
science. The church can compel the Galileos to recant, 
and can make the multitude suspect the men of science 
of being godless. But it is a victory at the expense of 
conscience, and always a temporary one. For science 
in its results becomes inevitably the common property 
even of those who are themselves incapable of taking part 
in it or of checking its conclusions. And a theology that 
persists in the resolve to ignore these results and to impose 
on scientific work rules not its own (religious), must more 
and more fall a prey to mockery and public contempt. 
Genuine evangelical Christianity is the only perfect reli- 
gion, because it can beget a theology that can suffer all 
true sciences beside it without forfeiting any of its own 
rights. For the evangelical Christian there is no other 
object of faith except the revelation of God in Christ that 
builds by the power of grace the kingdom of God in the 
heart. From the Gospel, as a centre, everything can be 
deduced that can claim to condition faith and to be sacred 
and inviolable for the church. This Gospel, however, has 
itself no elements in it that are exposed to the attacks 
of science, or that science could claim as objects of its 
specific work. The personality of Jesus has stamped 
its religious quality unmistakably and inerasably on the 
hearts of men (Holy Scripture), and it addresses to every 
man the question whether he will acknowledge it or reject 
it for his own relation to God. The answer to this ques- 
tion science can never give, but only faith or religious 
doubt, as the case may be. Theology as the science of 
faith has for its object the conviction that results on the 
assumption of the answer of faith. And what cannot be 


316 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


deduced from this Gospel belongs to the science of his- 
tory, however closely it may be connected with the histori- 
cal person of Jesus, and with the history of revelation. 
It concerns theology only in so far as the latter is an his- 
torical science. The Gospel is the condition of Christian 
bliss, not correct historical views of its history or the right 
scientific development of its doctrine. Faith is concerned 
with nature and history only in their relation to God, not in 
their connection with the world. And the sacred records 
of revelation can be regarded as the decisive norm only 
for the content of revelation itself, not for what they con- 
tain of matters of science or for their own literary origin. 
On these questions the theologian decides simply as phi- 
lologist and historian. And both the history of Israel and 
the scientific views of the prophets serve him simply 
as material for historical knowledge. But the spirit of 
veracity that Christianity inspires, and the happy certainty 
that all truth is of God, make Christianity a power even 
in science. And in the rich material of the literature that 
it has produced it offers to the scientific mind an incom- 
parable source of interest. Thus genuine Christianity can 
beget a sound theology that is a necessary and indisputable 
part of human science. For the religious life in the individ- 
ual such a theology is, it is true, not decisive. Piety thrives 
even amid grave scientific errors. But for the believing 
community in the world it is an indispensable condition of 
a good conscience and of a sound spiritual development. — 
_ To be sure, such a theology is at present only a postulate. 
The theology of confessionalism and of ecclesiastical 
authority persists in asserting the right of religion to pre- 
scribe its path also to science, and expects that science will 
change its course. The theology of compromise is ready 


Religious Problems S17 


to grant in principle the rights of scientific knowledge. 
But in any individual case where the history of revelation 
is involved it aims at a veiling of the plain contrasts by 
casuistry and concealment. The theology of pious pathos 
and devout dilettanteism hopes to settle scientific questions 
by appeals to the feelings and wishes of the heart. But 
the demand for a genuine theology lies in the nature of 
Christianity. In it science and faith can keep their own 
natures and find their true union. 

6. Christianity as such demands neither a definite sort 
of political constitution nor of social order. True Chris- 
tianity can thrive in any society that is founded on law and 
offers room for love, and that makes a worthy family life 
not impossible. But the principle of love must urge 
Christian nations more and more to reject institutions that 
rob a part of the people of the respect for its personal 
dignity that is necessary for true moral fellowship, and of 
the means for participation in this fellowship. Conditions 
that practically amount to slavery, false social distinctions 
that are inconsistent with the true honor of the inferior, 
the exclusion of women from worthy activities that guar- 
antee personal development, lack of occupation, lack of 
independence, beggary, etc., a true Christianity must make 
more and more impossible in the nations whose public life 
it rules. Thus Christianity is the purest and strongest 
power to promote the social renovation of nations; not 
merely by the activities of love that home missions pro- 
mote, but also by transformation of social conditions in 
the direction of justice and humanity, with social indepen- 
dence and the personal moral dignity of all as its goal. 
Christianity has no commands to give concerning trade, 
labor, or property. And he who uses it as a tool of politi- 


318 Christianity the Perfect Religion 


cal agitation mistakes its purely religious character and 
cannot help either corrupting historical Christianity or for 
the sake of his political ends separating himself, openly or 
secretly, from Christianity. This must be emphasized in 
view of the developments of Christian socialism. But it is 
entirely right to assert that, in its fundamental principle of 
human love and in its recognition of the kingdom of God 
as the highest good, Christianity has in it the irrepressible 
instinct to aim at health and a worthy human existence for 
all, without which no one can do his personal share for the 
kingdom of God. It must defend the nobility of all honest 
toil, preach the conception of wealth as a tool intrusted to 
us for moral ends, and maintain the possibility of every 
Christian’s attaining perfection by fidelity to his calling. 
Christianity is the highest humanity. And among the good 
angels of social progress in our time, that of Christianity is 
the Holy Spirit. 


INDEX 


Abidhamma, Pali work on rites, 181. 

Abraham, Mohammed’s relation to, 
195 ff. 

Abu-Bekr, first caliph (573-634), 
opinion of Mohammed, 197. 

Abydos, cults in, 147 f. 

Achilles, 163. 

Acoka, introduced Buddhism into In- 
dia, 181. 

Adonis, Semitic deity, 132. 

feschylus, 162 f. 

ZAstheticism, distinguished from re- 
ligion, 28, 87 f. 

Agni, Hindoo deity, 152, 174. 

Ahriman, Persian Evil One, 178. 

Ahuramazda, Persian deity, 174 ff. 

Amesha-Cpentas, Persian spirits, 175. 

Ammonites, polytheists, 130. 

Anaxagoras (500-428 B.C.), 291. 

Animals, their mental life, 23 f; wor- 
ship of, 123 f. 

Animism, 124 ff. 

Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109), 
ontological argument, III. 

Antonines, apologetics in age of, 6 
and note. 

Apollo, 163. 

Apollonius of Tyana (04, 100 A.D.), 7. 

Apologetes, for Islam and Buddhism, 
4; of early church, 6 note, 8 note ; 
Tertullian, 6 note; of age of Con- 
stantine, 8 note; of Middle Ages, 
8 note; of Renaissance, 8 note ; 
of 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, 
9 note; of 19th cent., 10 note, II. 

Apologetics, relation to science, 2; 
aim) of, If, 5.;. limits of, “1, 277 ; 
neglect of, 3; necessity of, 4f.; 
new problems for, 4; distinguished 


from dogmatics, 5; history of, 5 ff.; 
in early church, 5 f., 8; Tertullian’s, 
6 note; against Neoplatonism, 7 f.; 
in Middle Ages, 8; in 16th and 
17th cent., 9; against Deism and 
Rationalism in 18th cent. 9 f.; 
modern, 10f.; disclaims scientific 
knowledge of soul, 22; psychol- 
ogy and, 24 note; of revelation in 
18th cent., 271 f. 

Arabia, its paganism, 129 ff. 
Islam. 

Arameans, polytheists, 130. 

Arhat, Buddhist saint, 183 f. 

Aristophanes, 8, 164. 

Aristotle, 218, 291. 

Armenia, influenced by Babylon, 145. 

Art, Christianity and, 262 ff.; neglect- 
ed by early church, 263 f.; influence 
of Christianity on, 265 f. 

Aryans, see /ndo-Europeans. 

Asceticism, see Monasticism. 

Asclepius (Esculapius), 163. 

Ashantees, serpent worshippers, 123. 

Assyria, polytheism of, 130; influ- 
enced by Babylon, 145; see also 
Babylon. 

Asura, Persian divine name, 174. 

Athene, 163. 

Augustine, St. (354-430), his pessi- 
mism, 98; his ontological argument, 
110; 4, 8 note, 30, 242. 

Australia, 121, 123, 127. 

Avesta, sacred book of Persians, 4, 78, 
172 ff., 176 ff., 189 note. 

Aztecs, nature religion of, 128 f. 


See 


Baal, Babylonian deity, 130, 132. 
Babylon, its religion, 142 ff.; Semitic 


319 


320 


elements, 142 ; deities, 143 ff.; cult, 
143 ; cosmogony, 143f.; nature ele- 


Lndex 


monasticism in, 304; 47 note, 120, 
127, 173, 254, 264. 


ments, 144 ; recalls O. T., 144 f.; im- | Bundehesh, sacred book of Persia, 


moral elements, 145; 173, 189. 
Balder, Scandinavian deity, 160 ff. 
Balfour, Arthur, 10 note, 85. 

Beck, Vevl.s tos 

Beersheba, springs of, 130. 

Bel, Babylonian deity, 143 ff. 

Belief, see Fazth. 

Bender, Wilhelm, 236. 

Bentham, Jeremy (1748-1832), 85. 

Berkeley, George (1684-1753), 95. 

Bethel, sacred stone of, 129. 

Bodhisatta, future Buddha, 183. 

Book of the Dead, Egyptian, 150. 

Borneo, 123. 

Bo-tree, Buddha under, 180. 

Brahma, see Brahminism. 

Brahma-somaj, described, 159. 

Brahminism, pantheistic, 151; pessi- 
mistic and ascetic, 151f.; identity 
of gods, 152; cult, 152f.; castes, 

153 ff.; Brahmins, 153f.; process 

of redemption, 154f.; ritual pre- 

scriptions, 155; meditation, 155 f.; 

true nature of things, 156; goal, 

157 ff.; modern development of, 

15S his, 020,173,174, 3180 ff. 
Brahmins, 153 f. 

Bridgewater Treatises, il. 
Buddha, see Buddhism. 

Buddhaghosa, “Voice of Buddha,” a 
Pali commentator, 185, 186 note. 
Buddhism, modern apologetes for, 4 f.; 
its pessimism, 96 f.; Brahminic phi- 
losophy in, 157f.; compared with 

Confucianism, 171 ; Buddha, 179 ff.; 

diffusion of, 181 ; canon, 181; rites, 

181; doctrine, 181f.; Four Truths, 

162, 4:3) Nicvana, “183 (4.3) new. 

Buddhas, 184; its salvation, 184 f.; 

Thibetan form, 185; its ethics, 

186f.; defects, 187; how superior 

to Christianity, 239; kingdom of 


173 note, 
Byblos, in Pheenicia, cult, 149. 


Calderon (1600-1681), 266. 

Calvin, John (1509-1564), 30. 

Canaanites, 145. 

Cartesius, see Descartes. 

Castes, Hindoo, 153 ff., 182 ff. 

Celsus, 6, 23. 

Ceylon, Buddhism in, 181. 

Chaldea, see Babylon. 

China, Buddhism in, 181, 187. See 
Confucius. 

Christ, see Jesus, Revelation, Christt- 
anity. 

Christianity, not opposed to reason, 2; 
aims at happiness, 22; its nature, 
204 ff.; as faith in Christ, 220 ff. ; 
objections, 220f.; their answer, 
221 ff.; Christ the revelation of 
God, 223 ff.; his death and resur- 
rection, 226f.; faith in him a 
personal experience, 227f.; the 
Law and, 228f.; growth of doctrine, 
229 ff.; eschatology, 231; definition 
of person of Christ, 231 ff.; distin- 
guished from its dogmas, 233 f.; 
Scripture sole norm for, 234 f.; the 
perfect religion, 236 ff.; how proved, 
236 ff.; its perfection defined, 240; 
how inferior to other religions, 239 ; 
C. and morality, 254 ff.; C. and 
marriage, 260ff.; C. and culture, 
262 ff. ;> C. and ‘art; 265 1.) Crand 
social intercourse, 266f.; C. and 
the state, 267f.; priesthood in, 
302 ff.; monasticism in, 304 ff.; cult 
in, 308f. See Revelation, Jesus. 

Church and State, relation under 
paganism, 267 f.; under Islam, 268; 
under Buddhism, 268f.; under 
Christianity, 270 f. 


God in, 245 ff.; marrjage in, 261; | Cicero, 8, 19 note. 
church and state in, 268 f., 271; | Comte, Auguste (1798-1858), oppo- 


Index 321 


ligion, 141f., 145 ff; Nile, 146, 148 ; 
Phtah, 146; under Rameses, 146 ; 
cult of Ra and Osiris, 147 ; nature 
cult of, 147 ff.; eschatology, 149 f.; 
morality, 150f.; influence on Israel, 
189 f. 

El, Babylonian deity, 132. 

Elohim, 144. 

Epicureanism, gods of, 20; ideal of 
happiness, 85 ; influence on Chris- 
tianity, 217. 

Erinyes, 138, 163, 255. 

Eschatology, in early church, 231, 248; 
Egyptian, 149f.; Persian, 178f. 
Esseans (Essenes), influence on Mo- 
hammed, 195; relation to Jesus, 

206. 

Ethical Poetic Religions, see Ger- 
manic Races, Greece. 

Ethical State Religions, see Con- 
Jucius, Rome. 

Eumenides, 163. 

Evolution, theory criticised, 92 ff. 

Existence of God, weakness of tradi- 
tional arguments for, 100ff.; cos- 
mological argument, 103 ff.; teleo- 
logical argument, 105 ff.; ontological 
argument, 110 ff,; Augustine’s, 
110f.; Anselm’s, 111; Descartes’, 
111 f.; argument from fact of reli- 
gion, 113f.; argument from morality, 
114 ff.; cestimonium sp. S. 117F. 

Ezra, Mohammed on, 195 note. 


sition to Christianity, 5; on origin 
of religion, 12 note ; artificial ritual 
of, 32 note; his Positivism, 96, 306. 

Confucius (551-4788B.C.), his character, 
168 f.; worship of Heaven, 169f.; 
duties of Emperor, 170; cult, 170 fs 
music, 171; defects, 171. 

Conscience, 33 ff. 

Constantine the Great (274-337), 
apologetics in age of, 8. 

Cortez, Hernando (1485-1547), horse 
a fetich, 122. 

Cult, in primitive religions, 306 f. ; in 
Roman Catholicism, 307; rejected 
by Hebrew prophets, 307f.; in 
Christianity, 308 f. 

Culture Religions, see Babylon, Egypt, 
Brahminism, Germanic faces, 
Rome, Greece, Confuctus. 

Cyrus, the Elder (0, 529 B.C.), 173. 


Daeva, Persian evil spirits, 174 ff. 
Dahomey, serpent worship in, 123. 
Dalai Lama, 185. 

Dante (1265-1313), 266, 314. 

Darius I (521-485 B.C.), 173. 

Darwin, Charles (1809-1883), theory 
of evolution, 92. 

Deism, in 18th cent., 9 f.; 20. 

Delphi, 163. 

Descartes, René (1596-1650), ani- 
mals automata, 23 note; ontologi- 
cal argument of, 111 f. 

Dhamma, Buddhist law, 181, 185. 

Dhammapada, Pali poem on Buddhist 
ethics, 181, 186 note. 

Dionysus, 138 note. 

Dispersion of Jews, larger moral life 
of, 191, 205 f. 

Dorner, Jr., A. J., 18. 


Faith, its necessity, 82ff.; view of 
piety, 82f.; not to be replaced by 
knowledge, 83f., 89 ff.; results of 
loss of, 84 ff.; essential to morality, 
86f.; 91 f.; eestheticism no equiva- 
lent, 87f.; value for society, 88 f.; 
essential to free-will, 91 f. 

Fatihah, second Surah of Koran, 199 
note, 

Fetich worship, 122 ff.; 20 note. 

Feuerbach, Ludwig (1804-1872), 5; 
12 note, 17 note. 

Fichte, I. H., 18. 


Ebionites, influence on Mohammed, 


195. 
Ebrard, J. H. A., 48 note, 120. 
Edda, religion of, 159 ff.; 5, 140. 
Edom, 130, 188. 
Egypt, sacred animals of, 123; its re- 


As 


322 


Fichte, J. G. (1762-1814), 14f.,, 42, 
83, 158. 

Frau Holle, 138. 

Freyr, Scandinavian deity, 161. 


Ganges, 182. 

Gathas, Persian hymns, 173 note, 174, 
174, 

Gaunilo, contemporary of Anselm, 111. 

Gerhard, Paul (1607-1678), German 
hymn writer, 266. 

Germanic races, their religion, 159 ff.; 
nature myths, 159f.; cosmogony, 
160 ff.; renewal of earth, 161 ; non- 
ethical, 161f.; Christianity and, 
239. 

Gladstone, W. E. (1809-1898), 48 
note, 120. 

Gnostics, influence on Mohammed, 195. 

God, in what sense personal, 40 ff.; 
pantheism, 40 ff.; personality not a 
limitation, 42 ff.; natural law ex- 
pression of God’s freedom, 45. See 
Revelation, Existence of God, Re- 
ligion, Christianity. 

Goethe, J. W. (1749-1832), 85, 87 
note, 88, 266. 

Greece, indifference to poor, 87; its 
religion, 162ff.; deities, 162ff.; 
moral inadequacy, 164 ff.; contribu- 
tion to religion, 166; influence on 
Christianity, 216 ff.; Christianity and 
Greek culture, 263. 


Hamann, J. G, (1730-1788), 51. 

Hamitic Religions, defined, 142. See 
Babylon, Egypt. 

Hammurabi, Babylonian monarch 
(circ. 1550 B.C.), 144 note. 

Hanifs, Mohammedan saints, 196, 
200. 

Harms, Friedrich, 113. 

Harnack, Adolf, 215. 

Hartmann, Eduard v., opposition to 
Christianity, 5; pantheist, 40 note, 
41,44; on faith, 86; his pessimism, 
96 f.; influenced by Orient, 158, 


Lndex 


Hase, K. A., 18, 

Hegel, G. W. F. (1770-1831), on na- 
ture of religion, 15f.; on knowl- 
edge, 83; ontological argument of, 
II0; on history of religion, 120; 
influenced by Orient, 158. 

Hellenes, see Greece. 

Heracles, 162 f. 

Herbart, J. F. (1776-1841), 18. 

Herder, J. G. (1744-1803), 51, 112 
note. 

Herrmann, Wilhelm, 18, 102 note, 240. 

Hesiod, 162. 

Highest Good, defined by Christianity, 
240 ff., 249 ff.; deductions from idea 
of, 254 ff. 

Hillel, rabbi (75 B.c.—-Io A.D.), his 
ethics, 207 f, 

Hindoos, see Brahminism, Buddhism. 

Hodr, Scandinavian deity, 161. 

Holsten, K. J., 18. 

Holy Spirit, 79, 117 f. 275 ff. See Re- 
ligion, Revelation, Christianity, 

Homer, 135, 139 note, 140, 162, 

Horace, 167 note. 

Horus, Egyptian deity, 140 f. 

Huc, E, R. (1813-1860), in Thibet, 
185. 

Hulsean Lectures, 11. 

Hume, David (1711-1776), 9 note, 12 
note, I7 note, 120. 

Hyksos, Egyptian dynasty, 146. 

Hystaspes, Persian king (0d. 521 B.c.), 
174, 


Immortality, philosophical arguments 
for, 296f.; in Christianity, 298 f. 

Incas, 128 f. 

India, see Buddhism, Brahminism. 

Indians, American, 123. 

Indo-Europeans, paganism, 135 ff.; 
cult of ancestors, 135 f.; forces of 
nature, 136f.; deities, 137; cult, 
137 ff.; among Latin-Sabines, 139 f. 

Indra, 138, 152, 156, 

Innocent III (1198-1216), 98. 

Inspiration, defined, 77; literary rec- 


Lndex 


ord distinguished from agents, 
78f.; testimonium sp. s..793 view 
of piety, 79f.; of Biblical writers, 
80f.; of early church, 81. 

Tran = Persia, 177. 

Ishtar, Babylonian deity, 143 f. 

Isis, Babylonian deity, 148 f., 166. 

Islam, Christianity and, 3; modern, 
apologetes of, 4; apologetics 
against, 8; canon, 78; nature re- 
ligion in, 1273; description of, 
194 ff.; influenced by O. T., 195; by 
early sects, 195; by Semitic pagan- 
ism, 196; Mohammed to be judged 
by his age, 197f.; his revelation, 
198 f.; its content, 199 f.; defined, 
200 f.; injunctions, 201 f.; defects, 
202 f.; how superior to Christian- 
ity, 239; its kingdom of God, 
244 f.; marriage in, 260f.; church 
and state under, 268, 271; science 
and, 312; 254, 264. 

Israel, its religion, 187ff.; origin, 
187; henotheistic, 187f.; no my- 
thology, 188; development under 
prophets, 188 f.; Jahve, 190 ff. ;_ his 
will, 190; superstition, 191; Dis- 
persion, 191; combined Persian 
optimism and Buddhist idealism, 
191 f.; morality, 192; doubts, 193; 
its kingdom of God, 193; con- 
tained conditions of piety, 193 f.; 
doctrine of resurrection, 194; con- 
summated in Christianity, 194; 
Christ’s relation to, 204 ff.; early 
church and, 228f.; revelation in, 


274. 


Jacobi, F. H. (1743-1819), 16, 51. 

Jainas, Hindoo sect, 180. 

Jalal-uddin Rumi, Persian mystic 
(1207-1273), 203. 

Janssen, Johannes, 314. 

Japan, Buddhism in, 181, 187. 

Jean Paul Richter (1763-1825), 73. 

Jesus, in history, 204 ff.; relation to 
the law, 205 ff.; his new ideal, 


323 


208 ff.; kingdom of God, 210 ff.; 
his claims, 212 f.; relation to God, 
213 ff.; the object of faith, 214f.; 
influence of Roman culture on, 
215 ff.; influence of Greek spirit 
on, 217ff.; faith in him, 220 ff., 
227f.; his death, 226, 289 ff.; 
his resurrection, 226f., 279 ff. ; 
dogma of person, 231 ff.; sinless- 
ness of, 283 ff. See also Christ- 
anity, Kingdom of God. 

Jews, see /srael, 

Jinns, Arabian demons, 130, 

John, St., influence on dogma, 230 f. ; 
Christ’s sinlessness in, 284 f.; 232, 
EIS 

Judaism, Christianity and, 3, 5 f.; apol- 
ogetics against, 8. See also Jsrael. 

Juno, 167. 

Jupiter, 167. 


Ka, Egyptian shade of dead, 149 
note, as 

Kaaba, sacred stone of Mecca, 196, 

Kadesh, sacred springs of, 130. 

Kaffirs, 123, 

Kaftan, Julius, 18, 20. 

Kahler, Martin, 18. 

Kant, Immanuel (1724-1804), on na- 
ture of religion, 12 ff.; a pessimist, 
98; argument for religion, 115 note; 
4, 9I, 92, 105, III. 

Karega¢pa, predecessor of Zarathustra, 
178, 

Karma, Buddhist fate, 183. 

Khadijah, Mohammed’s wife, 197. 

Khasis-Adra, Assyrian Noah, 144. 

Khu-en-Aten, pharaoh, 146. 

Kingdom of God, Jesus and, 210 ff.; 
its nature, 236 ff.; the highest good, 
240 ff.; in nature religions, 241 ff.; 
in prophet religions, 243 f.; in Islam, 
244 f.; in Buddhism, 245 f.; in 
Christianity, 247 ff.; its hopes, 247 f.; 
its ideal, 248 f.; non-egoistic, 249 f.; 
its social power, 250 ff.; its realiza- 
tion of personality, 253 f. 


324 


Kings, Chinese sacred books, 78, 168 
note, 169. 

Kismet, fate of Islam, 202. 

Klopstock, F. G. (1724-1803), 266. 

Koran, divinely given, 49, 78; role in 
Islam, 195 ff. 

KGstlin, Julius, 18. 

Krauss, Alfred, 65. 


Lagarde, P. A. de (1827-1891), 5. 

Lama, 185. 

Lange, A., 65, 90. 

Law, Christ and the, 281 f. 

Leibnitz, G. W. (1646-1716), com- 
pared with Pascal, 9; on necessity 
of faith, 85; optimism, 98; on God, 
112; 69 note, 104. 

Lessing, G. E. (1729-1781), 10, 49, 
79, 90, 221. 

Lhassa, 185. 

Lipsius, R. A., 18, 50. 

Logos, influence of conception on 
Christianity, 219; 44 note, 49, 109, 
118, 229, 249. 

Loki, Scandinavian deity, 160 ff., 176. 

Lotze, R. H. (1817-1881), on miracles, 
73; against materialism, 94 f., 105. 

Lucian of Samosata (born 125 A.D.), 
7 note, 8, 164. 

Lucretius, 92, 106. 

Luther, 207, 304. 

Lydia, 145. 


Magi, in Persia, 174. 
Manicheans, influence on Moham- 
med, 195. 
Manu’s Laws, 153 f. 
Mara, Buddhist god of sensual pleasure, 
180 f. 
Mardik, Babylonian deity, 143 f. 
Marriage, in pagan world, 260 £340 
N. T., 261; in Christianity, 261 f 
Materialism, defined, 92 f.; how far 
valid, 93 f.; fails to explain morality, 
94 ff.; necessity of supplementing it 
with religion (Comte), 96. 
Mecca, 195 ff. 


Index 


Medea, 163. 


Media, 174. 

Medina, 196, 200. 

Memphis, its cult, 146. 

Mesopotamia, 4, 141, 142. 

Mettaya, last Buddha, 184. 

Mexico, religions in, 128 f. 

Meyer, J. B., 98. 

Mill, J. S. (1806-1873), 15, 85, 110. 

Milton, 266. 

Miracles, in revelation, 55 ff.; inade- 
quate, 55; essential to revelation, 
56; contra naturam, 57; laws of na- 
ture and, 58 f.; view of piety, 59 f, 
65 f., 68 ff., 72 ff.; in Bible, 61 f, 
64 f., 66 f., 279; no sure mark of 
revelation, 62 ff., 272; common to 
all religions, 63 f.; scholastic con- 
ception of, 60, 62; not duty of 
apologetics to defend, 67 ff.; per- 
sonality, as a force, 70 ff.; all higher 
life a miracle, 72 ff. See also 
Prophecy, Inspiration. 

Mithras, Persian deity, 166, 174, 177 f. 

Mitra, Hindoo deity, 152. 

Moab, 130, 188. 

Mohammed, see /slam. 

Moloch, Babylonian deity, 132. 

Monasticism, in Buddhism, 304; in 
early church, 304 f.; rejected by 
evangelical Christianity, 305 f.; in 
Roman Catholicism, 306. 

Mongols, Buddha of, 185. 

Montanism, 231. 

Morality, religion and, 254 ff.; in na- 
ture religions, 255 ff.; in prophet 
religions, 257; in Christianity, 
257ff.; aims at fellowship, 257 f.5 
above forms, 258 ff. 

Moses, 47 note, 188 ff. 

Moslem, see /slam. 

Motazilites, Mohammedan sect, 203. 

Mucius Sczvola, 8. 

Miiller, Max (1823-1900), 120, 137. 

Muspelheim, 161. 

Mysticism, its one-sidedness, 39; of 
Sufis, 203. 


Lndex 


Nagel, 82, 85, 90, 91. 

Nature Religions, primitive, 1109 ff.; 
general character of, 120f.; in low- 
est races, 121; fetich worship, 122 ff.; 
ideas of deity, 123; sanctity of ani- 
mals, 123 f.; tribal character, 124 f.; 
attitude toward deity, 125 f.; moral 
elements, 126 f.; wide diffusion of, 
127f.; Aztecs and Toltecs, 128 f.; 
kingdom of God in, 241 ff.; moral- 
ity in, 255 ff. See also Semitic Pa- 
ganism, Indo-Europeans. 

Nazarites, 188. 

Nebuchadnezzar, prayer of, 145 note. 

Neoplatonism, hostile to Christianity, 
7; aims, 7 f.; weakness, 8; revival 
in 16th cent., 8 note; mysticism 
in, 39; reinterpretation of Greek 
gods, 165; conquered by Christian- 
ity, 218, 

Nestorians, influence on Mohammed, 
195. 

Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), 207. 

Niebuhr, B, (1776-1831), 58. 

Nietzsche, Friedrich (1844-1900), op- 
posed to Christianity, 5; ethics, 86. 

Nile, 142, 146, 148 f. 

Niobe, 163. 

Nirvana, 183 f. 

Norns, 138. 

Northmen, see Germanic Races. 

Novalis, Friedrich y. Hardenberg 


(1772-1801), 17. 


Odin, Scandinavian deity, 138, 160 ff., 
176, 

Odysseus, 163. 

Olympia, 163. 

Omar, second caliph (592-644), opin- 
ion of Mohammed, 197. 

On, Egyptian city, 146 f. 

Optimism, in Christianity, 292f.; a 
duty, 100, 

Ormuzd, Persian deity, 178 f. 

Orpheus, 7. 

Osiris, Egyptian deity, 147 ff., 176. 

Ostiaks, fetiches of, 122, 


325 


Paganism, early church and, 5 ff.; 
church and state under, 267 f.; reve- 
lation in, 273; priesthood in, 300, 
See also Semites, Indo-Europeans, 
Nature Religions. 

Palladium, 122. 

Panetius, Stoic (born 180 B.c.), 8. 

Pantheism, defects of, 40 f. 

Parcee, 138, 

Parsees, 177 f. 

Pascal, Blaise (1623-1662), Pensées, 9 ; 
on faith, 91; on materialism, 93; a 
pessimist, 98, 100, 

Paul, St., influence on dogma, 230; 
on marriage, 261 ; on the Resurrec- 
tion, 280; .215, 218 f., 228 f, 232, 
236, 278, 

Paulsen, Friedrich, 98. 

Persia, see Zarathustra. 

Personality, defined, 26, 

Peschel, Oscar, 18. 

Pessimism, not formally hostile to re- 
ligion, 96 f.; logically destructive of 
it, 97 f.; involved in religion, 98 f.; 
false standard of, 99 f.; optimism a 
duty, 100; in Christianity, 292 f. 

Pfleiderer, Otto, 18. 

Phidias, 162 f. 

Pheenicians, 145. 

Phtah, Egyptian deity, 146, 148. 

Pindar, 162 f. 

Pirke Aboth, collection of Rabbinical 
maxims, 207, 

Plato, on knowledge, 83; protest 
against gods, 164; influence on 
Christianity, 218; 7, 47 note, III, 
162. 

Polynesians, 123. 

Praxiteles, 162, 

Prayer, of petition, 70. 

Priesthood, in paganism, 300; in cul- 
ture religions, 300f.; hostile to 
science, 301 f.; prophets hostile to, 
302 ff.; in Christianity, 302 ff.; in 
Roman Catholicism, 303 f. 

Prometheus, 163. 

Prophecy, distinguished from sooth- 


326 


Lndex 


saying, 74f.; fulfilment of O. T.| Revelation, its nature, 45 ff.; revelatio 


prophecies not possible, 75 f.; atti- 
tude of apologetics toward, 76 f. 

Prophet Religions, defined, 172f.; 
kingdom of God in, 243 ff.; morality 
in, 257; church and state under, 
268; revelation in, 273 ff.; priest- 
hood in, 302 ff.; cult in, 307f. See 
also Zarathustra, Buddha, Israel, 
Islam. 

Pythagoras, 7. 


Ra, Egyptian deity, 147 f. 

Ragheze, sacred mountain of Persia, 174. 

Ramadan, Mohammedan fast, 201. 

Rameses, pharaohs, 146. 

Rationalism, opposed to Christianity, 
3; in 18th cent. 9f.; conception 
of revelation, 47; view of miracles, 


57: 

Rauwenhoff, L. W. E., 18, 100. 

Redemption, true nature of, 294 ff. 

Reischle, Max, 18, 93. 

Religion, its necessity, 3; survey of 
views of, 12 ff.; popular view, 12; 
Kant’s view, 12ff.; Fichte’s, 14f.; 
Hegel’s, 15 f.; Schleiermacher’s, 16 f.; 
modern view, 17ff.; derivation of 
word, Ig note; presupposes a deity, 
20; begets creed and cult, 20f.; 
involves morality, 21; its process 
psychological, 22; based on feeling, 
23, 27; limited to man, 243 uni- 
versal, 25f.; distinguished from 
philosophy, 26f.; conditioned by 
will, 27f.; distinguished from 
estheticism, 28; roused by God, 
28 f.; by world, 29 f.; incapable of 
formal proof, 30f.; a longing for 
freedom, 31; expression in cult, 32; 
goal, 33; conscience, 33 ff.; science 
and, 35 ff.; theology and science, 37; 
faith defined, 37f.; mysticism, 39. 

Renaissance, zestheticism of, $7. 

Resurrection of Christ, its credibility, 
279; objections to, 279f.; Paul on, 
280; based on faith, 280 f. 


generalts, specialis, 46; to be dis- 
tinguished from its accidents, 46 ff.; 
no miraculous communication of 
knowledge, 47 f.; defects of scho- 
lastic conception, 48f.; an act of 
God, 49ff.; its agents, 51 ff.; 
realized in history, 53 f.; miraculous 
element, 55 ff.; in Christianity, 
271 ff.; in paganism, 273; in prophet 
religions, 273 ff.; in Israel, 274; 
dangers, 274 f.; nature of Christian, 
275 ff.; in Christ’s person, 277f.; 
proofs of, 278 ff.; not based on 
miracles, 279; nor on Resurrection, 
279 ff.; but on Christ’s personality, 
281 ff.; as exhibited in SS., 282 ff. ; 
and his death, 289 f. 

Ritschl, A., 18, 102, 105. 

Rohde, E., 124, 135 note. 

Roman Catholicism, historical Christ 
and, 222; identified with Christi- 
anity, 234; priesthood in, 303f.; 
monasticism in, 306; cult in, 260, 
307, 309. : 

Rome, Greek art in, 87; religion of 
Latin-Sabines, 139f.; religion, 
166 ff.; religion and law, 167; 
deities, 167; love of country, 168; 
defects, 168; influence on Christi- 
anity, 215 ff. 

Rothe, R. (1799-1867), 64. 

Rousseau, J. J. (1712-1778), g note, 
10 note, 98. 


Saczean festival, 143, 145. 

Sadducees, 194. 

Sakhya Muni, name of Buddha, 180 
note, 184. 

Samsara, “ becoming,” 182, 184. 

Sankhya, Hindoo philosophy, 182. 

Sassanides, Persian dynasty (226- 
636 A.D.), 173, 178, 189 note. 

Saussaye, C. de, 119, 

Scandinavia, see Germanic Races. 

Schelling, Friedrich (1775-1854), 120. 

Schenkel, D., 18. 


L[ndex 


327 


Schiller, Friedrich (1759-1805), 266. | Stoics, opposed to Christianity, 7 ; phi- 


Schleiermacher, Friedrich (1768- 
1834), nature of religion, 4, 16f., 102, 
113; apologetics, 10; Reden, 12, 51 ; 
on pantheism, 41; on revelation, 
513; 49 note. 

Scholasticism, 314 f. 

Schopenhauer, Arthur (1788-1860), 
15, 90, 96f., 158. 

Science, religion and, 2, 35 ff.; limits, 
3; hostility to religion, 5, 310 ff.; 
theology and, 37; Christianity and, 
262 ff. 

Scripture, norm of faith, 234f.; Christ 
in, 282f., 289 f.; theology in, 315 f. 

Semites, 129 ff., 142 ff. See also Se- 
mitic Paganism. 

Semitic Paganism, where found, 129 ; 
associations with natural objects, 
129f.; polytheistic, 130; tribal 
character, 130f.; cult, 131 f.; moral 
elements, 132 ff.; criticism of, 134 f. 

Seneca (2-65 A.D.), 8, 33 note. 

Serapis, Egyptian deity, 150. 

Set, Egyptian deity, 147, 149, 176. 

Severi, apologetics in age of, 7. 

Shakespeare, 266. 

Shiites, Mohammedan sect, 203. 

Siberia, 123. 

Simonists (St. Simon, 1760-1825), 
306. 

Sin, true nature revealed in Christian- 
ity, 293 f. 

Sinlessness of Jesus, in synoptics, 283 f.; 
in Fourth Gospel, 284 f.; no dogma 
of apologetics, 285 f.; defined, 286; 
implied in Jesus’ life, 237 ff. — 

Smith, W. Robertson, 129. 

Socialism, Christianity and, 266 note, 
3178. 

Socrates, 47 note, 218. . 

Sophocles, 162 f. 

Spencer, Herbert (1820-1903), 31, 40 
note, 

Spinoza, Baruch (1632-1677), denial 
of personality of God, 42 f. 

State, see Church and State, 


losophy of, 164; reinterpretation 
of Greek gods, 165; morality of, 
166. 

Strauss, David (1808-1874), against 
Christianity, 5 ; substitutes for re- 
ligion, 17 note, 87 note; panthe- 
ism, 40 note; world purposeless, 
106 ; evolution, 107. 

Sufis, Mohammedan mystics, 203. 

Sunday, Christian idea of, 267. 

Sunnites, Mohammedan sect, 203. 

Sutras, Buddhist maxims, 181. 

Sutta Nipata, Pali work, 184. 


Syria, 145. 


Tammuz, Babylonian deity, 143. 

Tantalus, 162. 

Taoism, Chinese philosophy, 171. 

Taubert, Agnes (Frau v. Hartmann), 
96. 

Tell-el-Amarna, 145. 

Temple, Second, 1809 ff., 205. 

Tersteegen, Gerhard (1697-1769), 
German hymn writer, 266. 

Tertullian (0d, 220 A.D.), apologetics, 
6 note. 

Thebes, 146 f. 

Themis, 163. 

Theology, in primitive religions, 310; 
inculture religions, 310f.; in prophet 
religions, 311 f.; conflict with sci- 
ence, 312; in Christianity, 312 f.; 
false conceptions of, 313 ff.; scho- 
lastic, 314; evangelical, 315 f.; false 
types, 316 f. 

Thibet, Buddhism in, 181. 

Thor, Scandinavian deity, 138, 160 ff. 

Thora, 206 ff. 

Thraétona, predecessor of Zarathustra, 
178. 

Tiele, C. P. (1830-1890), 18, I19. 

Titans, 138, 162. 

Toltecs, their religion, 128 f. 

Totemism, described, 123; in Egypt, 
146 ff. 

Trimfrti, Hindoo trinity, 158. 


328 


Tripitaka, Buddhist canon, 4, 78, 181. 

Tréltsch, Ernst, 18, 237. 

Truths, the four, of Buddhism, 182 f. 

Tsong Kapa, Thibetan reformer of 
Buddhism (1358-1419), 185. 

Turan, 168, 177. 

Tyr, Scandinavian deity, 161. 


Uhud, Mt., Mohammed’s defeat at, 197. 
Upanishads, 153, 155, 157. 


Valhalla, 138. 

Varro (116-28 B.C.), 140 note, 167. 

Varuna, Hindoo deity, 152, 174. 

Vedas, 4, 49, 78, 139, 151, 153f., 157, 
182, 301. 

Vendidad, 173 note. 

Vinaya, first division of Buddhist canon, 
181. 

Vinet, A. R., 18. 

Vishnu, Hindoo deity, 158. 

Vispered, 173 note. 

Voltaire (1694-1778), 9 note, 93. 


Ludex 


Wahhabi (Wahabites), Mohammedan 
sect, founded 1745, 200. 

Walkyries, 138, 160. 

Wellhausen, Julius, 129. 

Wolff, Christian (1679-1754), 98. 

World, true nature revealed in Chris- 
tianity, 291 ff. 


Xenophanes, eclectic philosopher, 291. 


Yacnas, Persian hymns, 173 note. 
Yathrib, old name of Medina, 200, 
Yima (Yama) = man, 174, 178. 


Zarathustra, literary sources concern- 
ing, 173; religion founded by Magi, 
174; person, 174 ff.; reformer, 174 ; 
relation to Brahminism, 174; Ahur- 
amazda,175; cult ofanimals, 175 f.; 
Angré Mainyus, 176; ethics, 177; 
cosmogony, 178; eschatology, 178 f. 

Zeller, E., 18. 

Zeus, 138, 163. 


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shows that he has in rare degree the gifts of the preacher, and that these chapters 
were first spoken as sermons, They lose in print none of their reality and practical 
efficieney. It is a good omen that this first attempt at a thorough restatement of 
Christian doctrine should command the service of the art to please and convince, 
and partake both of the ‘grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ.’”— The 
Congregationaltst. 


“The dominating idea of Dr. Hyde’s book is indicated by its title, ‘Outlines of 
Social Theology.’ It is not sociology viewed theistically: “it is theology viewed 
socially. It does not, like Kidd’s ‘Social Evolution’ or Drummond’s ‘ Ascent of 
Man,’ contribute one notably new and crystallizing thought to a familiar discussion. 
It is rather, as its title indicates, an ‘ outline,” But it is not a skeleton. It is full 
of life, of blood, of nerves. In it the author reflects in fresh and vital statements, 
the latest, and what the Outlook regards as the best, theological thought of our 
time. But this he does not as a mere reporter; he is a thinker who has felt the 
influence of the Zeitgeist, and reproduces in remarkably clear statements truths 
which lie in modern consciousness, either as undefined experiences or as individual 
but not correlated truths.” — 7he Outlook. 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, 
64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. 


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